


Brave the Wilderness

by LadyEnterprise1701



Series: Two Halves of the Same Protagonist [2]
Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Everybody Ships It, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Getting to Know Each Other, Late Night Conversations, So what would've happened if Ben HAD turned to the Light in TLJ...?, Star Wars: The Last Jedi Fix-It, Teasing and Banter, The Force Ghosts ship it, The Force Ships It, This is how things would've unfolded if Disney asked for my opinion, and oh look I actually completed a fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-03
Updated: 2020-06-07
Packaged: 2021-03-01 22:41:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 35,301
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23984761
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyEnterprise1701/pseuds/LadyEnterprise1701
Summary: The first time the Force connected them, she wanted to kill him. But as days turn into weeks on Ach-To, Rey suspects there's far more to her new arch-nemesis than meets the eye...and that there's still hope for the man trapped inside the fearsome persona of Kylo Ren.
Relationships: Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Series: Two Halves of the Same Protagonist [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2047505
Comments: 134
Kudos: 121





	1. The Man and the Monster

**Author's Note:**

> So my TROS fix-it stalled, and I'm really not sure if I'll return to it (sorry). BUT! After watching the Throne Room Scene in TLJ for, like, the fifteen-millionth time, a question suddenly popped into my head: "What if Ben Solo HAD turned back to the Light in this movie?" And that lead to all eleven chapters of THIS full, very-much-finished story. 
> 
> I've extended TLJ's timeline so that it takes place over 6 weeks, not 2 days. I've also got a sequel/TROS AU in the works, though I can't promise when that'll go up (I'm resisting the temptation to post new stories until/unless they're finished!). But I do hope y'all enjoy this story as much as I enjoyed writing it!

_Oh, through the wilderness_

_How come even together there can be loneliness?_

_Oh, our heart's a mess_

_But it's our only defense to brave the wilderness_

_\--Walk the Moon, "One Foot"_

The first time the Force connected them, she wanted to kill him.

Rey didn’t feel guilt about that, exactly. The sight of Kylo Ren sitting on the bench on the opposite side of her little hut on Ach-To had scared her out of her wits, and she’d learned from fifteen years on Jakku that sometimes you had to shoot first and ask questions later.

But as soon as the bolt shot through his stomach, he vanished. Only the gaping, smoking hole in the wall of her hut—and the subsequent angry scolding she got from the Caretakers—assured her it wasn’t a dream.

The second time she saw him, he was fine. The bolt hadn’t hurt him in the slightest. He stood straight and tall on the edge of the cliff in front of her, a look of morose weariness on his strangely handsome, dramatic features.

“Murderous snake!” she’d screamed, unloading the bitter hate she’d nursed ever since she saw him thrust his lightsaber into Han Solo. “You’re a _monster!_ ”

At those words he’d stepped closer, the muscles under his left eye twitching. His full lips had tightened and his jaw had clenched.

“Yes,” he’d murmured, as if it hurt him to say it. “I _am_.”

Rey had felt her glare falter. Before she could reply the connection snapped and Kylo Ren disappeared.

She barely slept that night. She’d followed Luke Skywalker all over the island all day long; her muscles ached and felt like lead. Yet she couldn’t get that self-loathing confession out of her head. It made no sense. According to Resistance gossip (and she’d gotten her fill of it during the few days she’d stayed with Princess Leia’s people), Kylo Ren was Supreme Leader Snoke’s pride and joy. He’d been entrusted with the enforcement of First Order policies, he presided over First Order occasions, he had his own ship, and his allies publicly flaunted his family connections to Darth Vader himself.

There was no reason in the Galaxy why Kylo Ren, the murderer of Han Solo, should feel remorse.

_Unless…unless he isn’t as far gone as we think he is._

That hopeful thought lasted a few hours. The third time the Force connected them, she was sorry she’d ever felt a twinge of sympathy for him. Luke had just told her what Kylo Ren did to the Jedi Temple and the rest of the padawans. The story filled her with righteous indignation, disgust, and grief. It had been bad enough that he’d cut down his own father—but he’d butchered children, too? Turned on his own uncle like that?

 _Murderous,_ hateful _monster!_

But then the Force isolated them again. She knew as soon as the thunder of Ach-To’s waves faded into the background that she had a visitor.

“I’d really rather not do this right now,” she grumbled—though she did stop in her tracks.

“Yeah, me too,” he said. Rey was pretty sure she heard grim humor in his deep, husky voice. She took a breath, squared her shoulders, and turned to him.

“Why did you kill your fa… _ther_ …”

Her voice strangled in her throat, her eyes bulging before she finally summoned the wits to look away. The Force either had terrible timing or a wicked sense of humor: he’d clearly just taken a shower. His hair was damp and he wasn’t wearing anything— _anything—_ except his black trousers. All the color rushed to Rey’s face in frantic, confused embarrassment.

 _“_ Can you just…can you just put a cowl on or something?!” she blurted.

He ignored that, the cheeky good-for-nothing—but he _didn’t_ ignore her demands for the truth. 

“Why did you hate your father?”

“I didn’t hate him.”

“Then _why?_ ”

“Why ‘what?’ _Say it._ ”

Kylo Ren obviously did _not_ like it when people beat around the bush. Nor did he lie to her as he told her his side of the tragic story with Luke. She accused him of lying, yes, but she didn’t believe it even as she said it. She _felt_ his raw honesty as surely as she felt the cold wind scraping in from the sea.

But when he stepped even closer to her, holding her gaze, Rey felt something else, too: a churning, agonized storm of emotion in his soul she never would’ve thought existed.

 _Pain. Conflict. Guilt. Sorry, sorry, sorry…can never go back…can never be forgiven…beyond hope…lost…alone…_

“Let the past die,” he’d murmured, never breaking eye contact with her. “Kill it if you have to. It’s the only way you’ll become who you’re _meant_ to be.”

Rey had swallowed, hardly able to breathe. His pain overwhelmed her—but why could she feel his pain? For an instant she imagined running her fingers over the jagged scar that ran all the way down his cheek to his chest—a scar _she_ had given him on Starkiller Base—and whispering to him, “I’m sorry…I’m so, so sorry…”

He disappeared, and the waves thundered against the cliffs of Ach-To just as they always had. Rey, however, was left with an ache that made her want to weep… _for him._

* * *

For the next few weeks Luke Skywalker trained her, his enthusiasm for the task varying from day to day—sometimes hour to hour. Some days he was quite cheerful, instructing Rey in the ancient, holy ways of the Force and the Jedi with an intensity and passion that delighted her. Other days he grumbled, scolded, rolled those clear blue eyes of his, and worked her till she was limp with exhaustion.

But something had shifted between them, and Rey wasn’t sure it was a bad thing. She respected him, knew he carried his own pain and felt compassion for him—but she wasn’t his awe-filled, naive admirer anymore. Luke sensed it, and maybe even appreciated it. Now, at last, he could deal with someone who didn’t put him on a pedastal he didn’t feel he deserved. 

At night, lying flat on her cot, her hair loose and streaming over her pillow, she weighed his story with Kylo Ren’s. The truth must lie somewhere in between. Perhaps they were both right…or perhaps someone wasn’t telling the _whole_ truth.

But that someone wasn’t Kylo Ren. She was absolutely, positively certain of it…and that scared her.

She saw him everyday. She and Luke would spar on the cliff, and she’d spot him—right in the corner of her eye. It looked like he was sitting on one of the nearby rocks, a ledger on his knees, writing something with a slim black pen. He glanced up as Rey’s staff collided with Luke’s. Rey met his gaze. The corner of his mouth tipped up.

And Luke promptly swept his staff down and behind Rey’s legs, sending her to the ground.

“Focus!” Luke cried—but not without a laugh that seemed to echo across the island. “Trust me, a lightsaber to the calves will hurt a lot more than this old staff.”

Rey grinned, as shocked by the sound of Luke’s laughter as she was delighted. But when she glanced back to where Kylo Ren had been watching, he was gone. _Again_. She recognized the disappointment as soon as it filled her head, and the color rushed to her face when she remembered how he’d smiled.

One night she bolted upright in bed, gasping and crying. She had dreamed about Jakku…about Unkar Plutt sending her away without portion bread…about curling into a fetal position on her poor excuse of a bed and sobbing through the gnawing hunger pains. She pressed the balls of her hands to her forehead, trying to catch her breath…

And sensed him sitting at the very end of her cot. She jerked her head up, sniffled, and folded her arms over her chest, very much aware that she wore nothing but a loose-fitting shirt and that her long, skinny legs were visible beneath the hem. He, too, was dressed for sleep. Black, of course…but more comfortable-looking than his crisp First Order tunic.

“What do you want?” she hiccuped without much dignity.

“I heard you crying,” he said. “I wanted to make sure you were all right.”

Rey wiped her nose with the back of her hand. “I’m fine. It was just a nightmare. Go back to sleep.”

He snorted softly, dropping his gaze to his hands. “I barely sleep.”

She looked a little harder at him, noting the blue-grey circles beneath his eyes. “Nightmares?”

“Always.”

“What…what are they about?”

He jerked his dark gaze up at that, but Rey steeled herself: if the Force wanted them to have midnight chats, she might as well be as brutally honest and curious as he was with her. He drew a shaky breath, rubbing his hands on his thighs.

“Do you really want to know?” he asked quietly.

“I do.”

He swallowed so hard, she saw his throat contract. “I dream…I dream about you.”

Rey’s eyes widened. He looked away, trying to gather strength to keep going, and stared at the blanket that served as the door of her hut. She wondered what he actually saw on his end. He’d said he could only see her, not her surroundings, and the same was true for her.

“I dream you’re being tortured,” he went on, his voice low and quaking just enough to let her know that the very idea curdled his blood. _Why???_ “I hear you screaming, and I want to help you, but I…I can’t.”

“You don’t want to help me,” Rey whispered. “You want to kill me.”

He looked at her again, and a grim smile tugged at one corner of his mouth. “Do I?”

Rey blinked, opened her mouth—and he vanished. She let out a frustrated groan and reached out into the Force, trying to drag him back.

But the Force had a mind of its own. It would bring him back when _it_ wanted him back.

* * *

Week 3. She had scratched lines on the wall of her hut to keep time. It was a habit she didn’t seem able to break.

She wondered about Leia and Finn on the Rebel base on D’Qar and hoped they were all right, that Finn was healing well and that Leia hadn’t given up on her brother. The beacon still flashed brightly on Rey’s wrist, a promise that she still had a home with them whenever Luke declared her ready. Ready for _what_ , she still wasn’t quite sure, but the way he looked at her now hinted that he might be forming a solid plan.

She was finally learning how to focus, how to wield his father’s lightsaber with ease and grace, and even—in small, innocent ways—how to bend nature to her will. She often basked in the evening sun while Porgs landed on her head and shoulders and clustered in her lap. When they followed her to the _Falcon_ , Chewie let out a groan of dismay. Rey could only giggle. Something about that groan didn’t really seem genuine.

And still her strange, Force-triggered meetings with Kylo Ren continued. If it happened while they were in the middle of something, they simply acknowledged one another with a nod. She certainly didn’t want her teacher to notice anything awry, and she suspected her unlikely new friend—if you could call him that—was often surrounded by subordinates who’d be just as horrified if they knew he was in regular communication with the enemy. 

Usually, however, the connection only sparked when they were alone. While he wrote reports…while she cleaned the fish Luke brought in for supper…while he strode down the corridors of whatever ship he currently occupied…while she tried to meditate. And then they’d talk…and talk…and talk.

Should she be worried about how _easy_ it was to start a conversation with him? She tried to keep Starkiller Base fresh in her memory—tried to remember Han’s death, Finn’s blood in the snow, and the pounding of her heart as Kylo Ren swung his crimson lightsaber against her ( _Anakin’s_ ) blue one. But every single time, she remembered the conflict and pain in his eyes when he’d loomed over her three weeks ago. Slowly—ever so slowly—her mind knitted together the raging Kylo Ren of Starkiller Base with…with…

With _this_ young man who appeared to her every day. He was quiet and brooding, inquisitive and intelligent, sometimes even chatty. He never asked where she and his uncle were. He never accused her of anything worse than being “a little scavenger”—and even _that_ had started to sound more like good-natured ribbing.

 _This isn’t Kylo Ren_ , Rey realized one day as he watched, genuinely interested, while she whittled away at a new training staff. _I don’t know_ who _he is, but he isn’t the same man who chased me down on Starkiller Base._

One morning, as she trudged up a flight of stone steps, she glimpsed him standing at the top with his back to her, gazing out at the sea. Knowing full well he wasn’t _actually_ looking at the ocean, she moved slowly towards him. Closer…closer…so close she could’ve grabbed that billowing cloak of his and tugged if she thought the connection would let her—

“ _BOO!_ ” she shouted.

There was nothing quite so hilarious, she decided, as the sight of the mighty Kylo Ren jumping four inches off the ground. He whirled and Rey collapsed in a fit of laughter, laughing so hard she had to hold her sides. He stared at her darkly—after, of course, looking both ways to make sure nobody wherever he was had seen him jump so high.

“That’s not amusing,” he growled.

“ _Your_ _face!_ ” Rey shrieked, pointing and crying with laughter. “Stars above, _your face!_ ”

He tried to scowl at her, but his mouth quivered at the corners and his dark brown eyes didn’t look so cold. Rey gasped for breath, leaned against a nearby rock. It was a good thing Luke had gone to milk his sea cows; otherwise, he might’ve heard her howling like a lunatic.

“I-I’m sorry,” she squeaked. “I just couldn’t resist.”

“You’ll pay for that,” he threatened…without any malice whatsoever.

“Oh, really? What, you’re gonna jump out at _me_ next?”

“We’ll see,” he said—and vanished.

That night she sat in the center of her hut, legs crossed, eyes closed, her hands on her knees. Tranquility, so rare on an island where the waves and wind never slept, washed over her. She stayed far away from the darkness creeping at the corners of her mind; after that first training session with Luke, she hadn’t mustered the courage to prob it again. _One day…one day…but for now…the Light…_

The Light called her name like a gentle, loving whisper. The Dark might be more alluring, but Rey craved the security and strength the Light offered. It offered her the belonging she’d lost the day her parents left her…the bravery she needed if she was going to be a true Jedi…the sheer _goodness_ she wanted to proclaim…

“Boo.”

She shrieked, whirled, and nearly toppled over. He was on his knees behind her, dressed for sleep again, his hands on his thighs—and he was _smiling_. Not a full-blown smile with teeth and dimples and crinkles at the corners of his eyes ( _how did she know his eyes would crinkle, or that he had dimples?_ ), but a true smile nonetheless.

And he looked just like Han Solo. Something white-hot and wonderful stirred in her chest at the thought. She couldn’t even glare at him. She just…laughed. 

“You’ll pay for that!” she cried, mimicking him. “I was meditating!”

“So I could tell,” he deadpanned, still smiling. “As you said earlier…I couldn’t resist.”

“Ugh, you’re terrible.”

“So I’ve also been told.”

Rey stopped, her giddy delight draining in an instant. His dark eyes softened and grew sad…almost wistful.

“ _You_ are _a monster!”_ she’d once snarled at him.

 _“Yes,”_ he’d replied. “ _Yes, I am.”_

 _“_ I didn’t mean it that way,” she whispered. “I was just teasing.”

The smile returned, just quieter. “I know.”

Rey started to say something, but footsteps sounded outside her hut and her heart jumped into her throat as Luke poked his head in.

“Everything all right?” he asked. “I thought I heard you scream.”

Kylo Ren stiffened; he could obviously hear Luke, but Luke still couldn’t see him. Rey cleared her throat.

“Sorry,” she mumbled. “There was a…a spider.”

Luke raised an eyebrow, amused. “You didn’t kill it, did you? They eat far more frightening insects around here—they’re more your ally than your enemy.”

“No, I didn’t kill it. I’m sorry—I’ll try not to scream next time.”

He nodded and let the blanket fall, retreating to his own hut. Rey let out the breath she’d been holding and looked at her companion. His mouth twisted at one corner now, and not in a pleasant way.

“Luke,” he said. Rey nodded. He sighed.

“Does he ever…” He swallowed, raked a hand through his black hair. “Does he ever talk about me before…before what happened? Because I wasn’t always…I wasn’t always like…like _this._ ”

Rey leaned forward. “Tell _me,_ then. Tell me whatever you want to tell me.”

He looked at her, deep and long and searching. Rey didn’t even allow herself to blink. She wanted him to be absolutely certain that she meant it. He was the man who’d frightened her and broken her heart on Starkiller Base…but he was also so lonely. So lost. So…so…

_Desperate for a kind voice. No one has spoken kindly to him in seven years._

_But how do I know that?! WHY do I know that?!_

“I had a dog once,” he blurted. Rey raised her eyebrows; he let out a nervous breath. “Her name was Amera. I’d spend hours in the forests on Chandrila with nothing and no one but her and a sketchbook. I’d find a log to sit on, she’d guard me, and I’d draw until the sun set and my…my mother sent C-3PO to find me.”

Rey smiled, leaned her elbows on her knees. “I didn’t realize she’s had that droid for so long.”

He snorted. “That droid belonged to my _grandmother_. Is he still as annoying as he ever was?”

Rey giggled. “He _is_ a bit annoying, isn’t he?”

Kylo Ren smiled. Then he was gone—but not before she saw the crinkles deepen at the corners of his eyes. 


	2. You Are Not Alone

_Pitiful creature of darkness_

_What kind of life have you known?_

_God, give me courage to show you_

_You are not alone…_

_—The Phantom of the Opera_

“I saw you once. Long before Takodana.”

At this simple yet mind-boggling statement, Rey looked up quickly from the fragile Jedi book lying open on her lap. She’d passed the five-week mark two days ago. This morning she sat in the cleft of a rock, shielded from the ceaseless wind, the hood of her poncho drawn up over her head, while Kylo Ren perched on an outcrop not two feet away and slightly above her. From his position, she guessed he sat in a swivel chair. He had his hands clasped between his spread knees and his shoulders curved slightly forward, as if he were leaning against a high-backed, cushioned seat.

Rey closed the book—carefully—and frowned at him. “What do you mean?”

He leaned his head back, thoughtful. “I was studying with my friend, Tai. Much like you’re studying now. It was quiet in the room, we were alone…and all of a sudden, I heard a little girl crying. I looked up and there you were, right in the middle of the room, staring at the ceiling—the sky for you, I suppose.” He looked at her, so intense and _knowing_ that she felt it again: that certainty that he’d never lie to her. “You said it over and over again. ‘Don’t leave. Come back. _Come back_.’ ”

Rey’s throat burned. He dropped his gaze, rubbing one thumbnail against the pad of his other thumb.

“Tai didn’t see you,” he added quietly. “I think he was worried I’d gone mad.”

“How did you…” Rey swallowed, blinked back tears. “How do you know it was me?”

He glanced up, gestured at his own head. “Your hair. Three dark buns. Don’t you ever change it?”

She brought her hand up to her hood, feeling the three knots of hair. “It was practical on Jakku.”

“Of course. The heat.”

“Sand, too. It gets everywhere.”

He nodded. She looked away, overwhelmed by the thought that he’d seen the most painful day of her life.

“Everything in me wanted to help you,” he said softly. “I would’ve combed the Galaxy for that frightened little girl if I could have. And when I heard that a girl had the droid we were looking for—the one with the map to Skywalker—I knew it was you. Don’t ask me how, because I still can’t answer that. But I _knew_.”

Rey stared at him through her tears, recalling their first meeting on Takodana and seeing it in a completely new light. He’d wanted her for her information, yes. He’d invaded her mind, the cruelest of violations.

 _But he…he never did try to_ hurt _me, did he? Even when we fought on Starkiller, he stared at me like he knew me. Or like he was trying to figure out something._

_He saw me on the worst day of my life…and he didn’t forget about me._

Something clicked in her head. She blinked, a single tear running down her cheek, and offered him a fragile, puzzled frown.

“Did you ever fall down a dark, cold hole?” she asked.

He frowned. Rey pursed her lips, trying to organize her thoughts and make sense of them.

“It’s just…one time, a few years ago, I was bringing in some scraps for Unkar Plutt, the junk dealer I worked for—and all of a sudden I felt this strange, cold darkness _._ You know how your stomach lurches when you fall from an awful height? I felt that, too.” She shook her head. “I could never explain it, and Unkar thought I was hallucinating from the heat, but…”

Kylo Ren tilted his head forward, off the back of his invisible chair. “When was this?”

“I don’t know exactly. It was hard to keep track of time.” She thought hard. “I must’ve been about twelve.”

“How old are you now?”

“How old are _you_?”

He didn’t smile, but his eyes softened a bit at her defensive retort. “Twenty-nine.”

Rey smothered her surprise before it showed on her face. She would’ve never thought he was that much older than her. She drew her knees up a little closer to her chest, bringing the book with them.

“I’m nineteen,” she said, as nonchalantly as she could.

He quirked an eyebrow. “Then that was about seven years ago. Falling into the Dark Side…it felt like that.”

“Do you think I sensed it?”

“Maybe.”

“Why?!”

“I don’t know. I still don’t understand _any_ of this.”

Rey frowned, bit her lower lip. She didn’t understand it, either…but she no longer hated or bristled against it. In fact, she looked forward to it…and liked to think that maybe he did, too.

“Do you ever wish…”

Her voice trailed off. Kylo Ren leaned forward, his elbows on his knees.

“I wish you finished your sentences more often and didn’t leave me hanging,” he deadpanned.

“I like to choose my words carefully, thank you very much.” She smirked at him, then hugged the book to her chest and grew serious again. “Do you ever wish you could go back? That you could leave the Dark and come back to the Light?”

Just like that, a shadow crossed his face. He leaned back, stiff as a board.

“I can’t,” he said, his eyes fixed straight ahead. “It would never take me back. _No one_ would.”

“It took Darth Vader back,” Rey countered.

Kylo Ren sighed, a long, deep, weary sound.

“Darth Vader didn’t kill his father,” he said.

He was gone two seconds later. Rey shivered and opened the book again, but she couldn’t concentrate and had to take a long, arduous walk before her thoughts calmed.

* * *

Week 6, and still Luke wouldn’t agree to leave Ach-To. Rey begged and pleaded, insisting she knew enough now to take on whatever the First Order threw at them both (though she now hoped, in the back of her mind, that that _never_ involved a personal confrontation with a certain brown-eyed, black-haired, increasingly soft-spoken dark lord).

Luke, however, remained inflexible.

“You’re not ready,” he said sternly, jabbing an index finger in her face. “I know exactly what you’re thinking, because I’ve been there before. I ran headlong into danger, completely ignoring my master’s objections—and you know what? I lost this hand as a result. Trust me, Rey. You don’t want to jump into action until it’s time.”

“But what about Leia?” Rey cried. “Even if I’m not ready, you can always train me on D’Qar and help _her!”_

Luke’s expression darkened; he shook his head and turned away.

“I’ve already helped Leia enough,” he muttered. “And look where it landed all of us.”

Rey clenched her hands. “You can’t blame yourself for that forever. The Resistance needs you, Luke!”

He said nothing in response, merely folding his hands and staring out to sea. Furious, Rey spun on her heel and stormed away.

Her anger, however, took her exactly where she shouldn’t have gone, to the very place she’d avoided every since her first lesson with Luke.

It took her into the Darkness…to the cave beneath the island…and everything inside it. 

* * *

A few hours later Rey stumbled into the dark hut the Caretakers had assigned to her, drenched to the skin and wracked with sobs. The horrified grief that had overwhelmed her in the cave had driven her all the way back through pounding rain and tearing wind. She had no idea where Luke had gone. Quite frankly, she didn’t care.

_I’m alone. Completely and utterly alone. My parents are nameless, faceless ghosts. Maz was right. They’re never coming back…and I’m never going to know who they were. I’m a nobody._

_I’m NOTHING._

She shivered, crying so hard now that her shoulders hunched and she gasped for air. If the Caretakers could hear her over the storm in their own huts, they’d probably assumed she’d gone completely insane. But only _truly_ insane people would’ve sat there in the dark in abject misery, catching their death of cold. With trembling hands, Rey peeled away her sodden vest; from the supplies she brought with her she pulled out a tinderbox and set a fire in the hut’s center pit. Once the flames caught the dry wood she threw a blanket around herself and dropped onto a stool, utterly exhausted.

But she hadn’t stopped crying. She couldn’t. She had never felt this… _desolate_. Even during those first horrific years on Jakku, she’d at least been able to hold onto the promise that her parents would come back for her. Now those hopes were finally dead. And she didn’t even have any faces to go with the names that whispered every once in a while through her vague memories.

_Mama. Papa. Come back. Come back, please, I need you so much…_

_Why didn’t they come back to me?! Please, somebody—TELL ME why they didn’t come back!_

She dropped her head and squeezed her eyes shut with a loud, miserable sniffle—and everything else went silent. The storm retreated into the background; the snap and crackle of the fire melted away. All Rey could hear was her own heartbeat, her own breath…and a deep, resonant voice that no longer frightened her.

“Rey?”

She jerked her head up. He sat on the other stool facing hers, his gloved hands fisted on his knees. “What’s wrong?” 

Rey sniffled, wiped her nose. “Nothing.”

“I don’t believe you.” He leaned forward, holding her gaze. “Tell me, Rey. You might as well, because until the connection stops, we’ll just be sitting here. Looking at each other.”

Rey tugged her blanket tighter around herself and glanced at the door of her hut. Even though she couldn’t hear it, she knew the storm thundered on. Luke wouldn’t be interrupting her tonight—and even if he did, he would never see his nephew. She relaxed a little and turned her attention back to Kylo Ren.

“I saw something,” she whispered.

He raised his eyebrows. “What?”

She let out a shaky breath, choosing her words carefully so she wouldn’t give away her location. “There’s a cave here. I think I’ve been drawn to it ever since I arrived. It’s almost as if…the Force was calling me to go inside.”

He nodded. “It does that sometimes.”

She glanced at him questioningly, but he didn’t elaborate. She swallowed hard and decided to go on.

“There was a pool, and I…I fell in. It scared me. I’ve never even been swimming, but it was like my body knew what to do, how to get back to the surface.” She paused. “Was _that_ the Force?”

He let out a short breath through his nose. “No, that was human instinct.”

She bristled. “How do you know?”

“Because that’s how I learned how to swim. I was six, I think…and Chewbacca threw me into a swimming pool. He laughed for days.” He pulled in a deep breath and sat up straight, opening a gloved palm. “So you swam back to the surface.”

“Yes,” she murmured. “And when I climbed out of the water…there was this wall. It looked like glass. I could see my own reflection, going back and back and back…it was like there were thousands of me, mimicking my every word. I should’ve felt trapped or panicked, but I didn't. This didn't go on forever—I _knew_ it was leading somewhere…and that, at the end, it would show me what I came to see.”

“Which was?” he prodded.

She looked hard at him, mustering all the courage she had to speak the truth. “My parents.”

Kylo Ren blinked. Rey rubbed her bare feet together, nervous. He’d flung it in her face six weeks ago: “ _Your parents threw you away like garbage. But you can't stop needing them. It's your greatest weakness…”_

But six weeks was a long time. There was no contempt in his voice now as he asked, softly, “Did you find them?”

Rey’s throat tightened; her eyes welled with fresh tears. “No. I thought I would. There was a shadow behind the glass, but then…it was just me. It was just my own face…”

Her voice crumbled; she closed her eyes, letting the tears roll down her cheeks, but she was beyond sobbing now. He didn’t say a word. She was almost afraid to look at him.

“I thought I'd find answers here,” she whispered. “I was wrong. And I've never felt so alone.”

There was a moment’s silence. Then she felt it: a gentle, longing ache that didn’t come from her. It flooded her mind and her heart until she wanted to burst into tears all over again—but not because she was grief-stricken.

Rey wanted to cry because, for the first time since she was a small, defenseless, starving child, she felt…

_Understood._

_Known._

_Seen._

“You’re not alone,” he murmured.

Rey looked up. The firelight cast weird shadows over his angular features. But it also illuminated something she never expected to see from him, and certainly not for _her._ His dark, beautiful eyes— _yes, his eyes_ are _beautiful—the most beautiful thing about him—_ were full of tears. 

“Neither are you,” she whispered.

He tilted his head ever-so-slightly to the side, a hint of bleak skepticism in the way he pursed his lips.

“It isn’t too late,” Rey added softly. _It’s never_ _too late._

Still he looked like he couldn’t bring himself to believe her. Rey’s heart ached for him. Without taking her eyes off his face, she slowly—ever, ever so slowly—lifted her hand and stretched it out to him.

He glanced at it. Rey held her breath. Maybe the Force had been projecting her image and not her actual, flesh-and-blood self to him all along. That would make more sense, to be honest.

But she sensed his willingness to test it. He peeled off one glove, never taking his eyes off her face. Her blood pounded in her ears. _This is happening, this is really happening…please don’t let the connection break off right now…please let this work…_

He stretched out his hand. For one breathless moment, their fingers hovered centimeters from each other. Rey could hardly bear it until his warm skin finally brushed her cold fingertips—

And a burst of light exploded in her mind. Rey gasped as she saw him—in her mind’s eye—on what could only be the _Falcon,_ running to his mother with tears streaming down his face. He threw himself down on his knees and buried his face in Leia’s gown…and his mother stroked his hair.

Then she saw him fighting with a grace and agility that could only come from a soul at peace—and she was beside him, twirling a yellow lightsaber. They were fighting the monsters together… _together, together…_

She saw them facing a powerful, snarling Darkness, side by side, hand in hand. Her teeth were bared in her determination; his dark eyes stormed with defiance. They crossed their sabers in a blinding flash of light.

Last but not least she saw them on a cool, green planet—not Ach-To, but somewhere else familiar and loved —walking barefoot through delicate grass. The wind stirred her long, unbound hair and his loose blue tunic. The Rey in the vision smiled dreamily as he took her head in his massive, gentle hands and captured her lips with his own. 

_Ben. Ben Solo._

Rey gasped again and blinked. The vision fled, but the name echoed through her head like a triumphant cry. _Ben!_ And as soon as she refocused her gaze on young man in front of her, she knew he’d seen it too—all of it. His stony facade crumbled; he stared at her in wide-eyed disbelief ( _or relief?_ ). A tear tumbled down her cheek. She hadn’t even realized she’d started crying again.

“Ben,” she whispered.

He drew a long, ragged, _hopeful_ breath. He pressed his hand more firmly against hers, his thumb curving around her hand, and opened his mouth to say something—

The blanket that served as the hut’s door whipped open. Before Rey knew what was happening she heard Luke’s Skywalker’s panicked shout followed by a crack of thunder, and sprang to her feet as the entire structure tore itself apart and out into the sea. Rain pelted her face, dousing the fire instantly.

When she looked desperately back towards the twin stool, Ben Solo was gone. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've been reading "The Rise of Kylo Ren" and it makes me feel like I'm watching a train wreck. RIP Tai :(


	3. The Rise of Ben Solo

_I will slip again, and you'll find me_

_I will live again, and you'll find me_

_Run, but carry the meanings of your past_

_\--Breaking Benjamin, "Better Days"_

The connection with Rey snapped, and the young man known throughout the Galaxy as Kylo Ren leaped to his feet in an absolute panic. His heart pounded against his ribcage and his breath came hard and fast—but he wasn’t sure it all stemmed from fear for her safety. Uncle Luke had obviously seen him this time, and he was _clearly_ furious. The violent destruction of Rey’s hut had been proof of that.

But Rey could take care of herself. She wasn’t being startled awake by a lightsaber over her head—and deep down, even _he_ knew his uncle wouldn’t intentionally harm her. It wasn’t like she was a threat to Luke, his Academy, or the Republic he’d fought so hard to save.

So no, it wasn’t just fear that sent his heart rate through the ceiling. This was something else. He’d tasted it before, seven years ago, when his friend Tai knelt before him, pleading with him to come back to the Light…right before his new master, the Lord of the Knights of Ren, snapped Tai’s neck.

It was _hope_ Ben Solo had felt right before that horrifying moment. He’d felt it again the moment he touched Rey’s hand. He had no doubt the Force had conjured those visions in his head—images of him on his knees before his mother, of confronting the Darkness with Rey at his side, of kissing Rey like he had nothing better in the universe to do. She’d fascinated, intrigued, and comforted him ever since these mysterious connections began. Now he knew (or at least suspected) why.

The Force _wanted_ them together. And the call of the Light had never been so overwhelming.

“Bring me back,” he begged, his raspy voice echoing in the dark, chilly cabin. “Take me back, _please.”_

But the Force refused to cooperate. Ben raked his hands through his hair, suddenly remembering he’d taken off one glove. He stared at his naked palm for a moment before tearing off the other glove and throwing it away like it burned him.

_Take me back to her! Let me see that vision again. If there’s still hope for me, LET ME SEE IT AGAIN!_

Silence. The Force seemed to be waiting. But for what? For him to fall on his knees, weeping and screaming like a child? He’d done that already, the night after Starkiller Base. After the med-droids left him alone and Snoke offered him some halfhearted praise for butchering his own father, the fearsome Kylo Ren had locked himself in his cabin and let himself _roar_ with grief.

He wouldn’t humiliate himself like that tonight. The Force wouldn’t care. If it had, it would’ve stopped him from running his lightsaber through Dad’s heart.

 _Dad_. He froze in his pacing tracks, closing his eyes and drawing a ragged breath. For seven whole years he’d been able to simply call his father “Han Solo.” It made everything more distant…clinical. But now he couldn’t purge the familial name—or the memory of what he’d done—out of his head.

“ _The deed split your spirit to the bone!”_

The tears burned his eyelids; he opened them, trying to catch his breath and failing. He’d never be enough for Snoke, would he? He could murder his own father, blow his mother into oblivion, _and_ annihilate Luke Skywalker, and still he’d never measure up. He’d just be a child in a mask, a pretender who’d never be as strong as Darth Vader. 

His grandfather had turned his back on everything and everyone for the Dark Side, setting himself free from grief or remorse. Beneath the mask of Kylo Ren, however—beneath the implacable facial expressions, the cold, stern voice, and the broad shoulders that looked as if they could carry the weight of Snoke’s empire—beneath all that was a young man who hungered for the touch of a scavenger-girl from Jakku, agonized over his father’s murder, and desperately avoided harming a single hair on his mother’s head.

And yet Snoke would simply drive him to do other, more hateful things until he finally tumbled off a moral precipice, beyond help or hope.

_But that vision…it showed me something different. Why now? Why, after all these years, is the Force giving me hope?!_

As if in response, his acute sensitivity to the Force piqued: Snoke was turning his own mind in his direction. Panicking, Ben shielded his emotions: he pulled in a breath, clenched his fists, and closed his eyes again. _Control, control._ He’d never been good at it, as his uncle so often pointed out. _Center on something. Focus, focus, FOCUS…!_

His focus snapped and locked on Rey. Six weeks of meeting her…talking with her…learning about her and her personality…seeing her first as a puzzle to be solved, then as his first confidante in years…startling her with a boyish prank…telling her about his childhood dog…sharing his nightmares…

 _Strong in the Force, stronger than she knows. Smart. Tougher than any of the girls on New Alderaan or Chandrila. Funny. Beautiful. She reached out to me and I let her. There’s a future where we fight together…where I_ love _her…even though she knocked me on my backside on Starkiller Base—_

“Never take for granted a woman who can beat you to a pulp, Kid.”

Ben’s eyes flew open and he gasped. Snoke’s roving mind had retreated—but there, right in front of him, sat his father without even the blue shimmer of a Force Ghost. He had his ankles crossed on the desk, one hand absently tracing the wall behind him. Ben stared at him, open-mouthed.

“I’m dreaming,” he said slowly. “That, or I’m going mad.”

Dad cocked an eyebrow. “The Skywalker Curse.”

Ben blinked. “What?”

“The Skywalker Curse. One time when your mom worried she was going crazy, I told her she got it from her dad. Bit of a cruel joke, I know. I slept on the couch that night. Never used it on her again.”

Ben clenched his hands at his sides and ground his teeth. “Why…why didn’t you tell me? Why did you wait until it was all over the net to tell me Darth Vader was my grandfather?”

Dad lowered his arm, the expression on his weathered face growing more serious. “Okay, Mr. Wise Guy. How would _you_ break the news to _your_ ultra-sensitive, emotional, Force-sensitive kid that his granddad was a mass murderer who only redeemed himself right at the end of the line?”

“Don’t,” Ben snapped, aiming a finger at the ghost—vision—whatever. “Don’t you _dare_ make wisecracks about this. I’m not in the mood for your jokes!”

“I’m not joking,” Dad said quietly. “Your mother and I argued for years over whether or not to tell you.”

“Well, maybe if I’d known, everything would’ve made sense!”

“ ‘Everything?’ “

 _“_ Why I’m a—” Ben stopped, mustering the courage to say the word. “Why I’m a _monster_.”

His father stared at him. Ben shut his eyes and shook his head, fighting back the pain before it could churn up another storm and catch Snoke’s probing attention.

“You’re not a monster,” Dad murmured. “You’re my son, and I love you.”

Ben shook his head again, his shoulders slumping. “Your son is dead.”

Despair tightened its cold grip…until a sudden warmth washed over him. Ben looked up and saw his father standing right in front of him. He hadn’t heard him get up—but then again, ghosts (visions?) probably didn’t make much sound when they walked around. Not that Ben would know. He didn’t have any experience with ghosts.

This one seemed awfully substantial, though—as substantial as Rey had been when she stretched out a hand to him. Ben could’ve sworn he even smelled the musky leather of his dad’s battered old jacket.

“Kylo Ren,” Dad whispered, “is dying right in front of me. My _son_ is alive.”

 _Too much, too much, too much_. Ben’s face contorted in a grief-stricken grimace as his father lifted a hand—a real, solid hand—and cupped his scarred cheek. Dad ran his warm, calloused thumb along the scar, a gentle smile crossing his own face.

“Dad,” Ben choked. “I—“

He couldn’t say it, not without breaking down. _I’m sorry. I’m sorry…please forgive me…I love you, I love you so much…Dad…_

Dad nodded, quirking an eyebrow.

“I know, Son,” he murmured. “I know.”

Ben let out a shuddering, watery breath. Dad gripped his arm with his other hand in a firm, manly grasp, his expression growing harder with resolve.

“Now get out there and do what you have to do,” he growled, turning on one of his signature grins. “You’ve got more than enough strength to do it.”

Then he was gone. Ben shivered and looked around. There was no trace of Han Solo anywhere, but for the first time in twenty-nine tormented, lonely years, resolution—quiet and free—filled Ben Solo’s heart.

And _that_ was evidence enough that he hadn’t dreamed a second of it. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Bendemption was one of my absolute-favorite scenes in TROS. In fact, the only reason is isn't my #1 Favorite Scene is because the Lightsaber Swap of Ultimate Dyad Awesomeness just barely squeaked ahead of it. Still, it's the most beautiful redemption/conversion scene I've ever witnessed in any film, EVER, and I hope I did it justice in this alternate timeframe. 
> 
> Thank you for all the lovely comments, by the way! Your encouragement and excitement are deeply appreciated!


	4. Mission of Mercy

_I've never felt so certain_

_All my life I've been torn_

_But I'm here for a reason_

_Could it be the reason I was born?_

_I have always been so different_

_Normal rules did not apply_

_Is this the day?_

_Are you the way_

_I finally find out why?_

_—Frozen II, “Show Yourself”_

Back on Ach-To, Rey fought for control. 

“Is it true?” she cried over the violent rain. “Did you try to murder him?!”

Luke Skywalker narrowed his eyes. “Leave this island _now.”_

Disgust filled his voice—but Rey was too angry to care what this man thought about what he’d witnessed in the hut, let alone what he thought of _her_. As he turned away, storming up the steps to his own hut, she dug her nails into her palms.

“Stop!” she shouted. “STOP!”

He kept walking. Fury erupted in her chest. Rey seized her staff and broke into a run. Before Luke could get much further, she whacked him on the back of the head. 

She didn’t hit him hard enough to hurt him, but he staggered and whirled, anger flaring in his blue eyes. Rey raised her staff again as he summoned his solar antenna; it broke with a flash of sparks and slammed into his hand, deflecting her next blow.

For an aging Jedi, he was still incredibly strong. She knew that after six weeks of sparring with him. But Rey was faster, younger, and fueled with more than just anger now. Luke blasted her staff out of her hands, but she simply stretched out a hand and Anakin Skywalker’s lightsaber flew into her palm, flashing blue. Without hesitation she stretched out her other hand, flinging Luke away. Panic flooded his eyes for half a second before she stopped him an inch or two off the sharp rocks, hovering.

When she was sure he’d read her meaning—that she’d never wanted to hurt him—she let him down gently. Her voice, however, she kept strident as she turned off the lightsaber and loomed over him.

“Did you do it?” she cried. “Did _you_ create Kylo Ren?”

Luke hesitated. Rey gripped the lightsaber hilt even more tightly, her skin crawling.

“Tell me the truth,” she said, lowering her voice. “You told me one story all those weeks ago, but he told me another. The truth _has_ to be somewhere in between—and I’ll know this time if you’re lying or not.”

The Jedi-Master flicked his drifting gaze back to her. Rey kept her head up and her shoulders back, willing herself to look far more confident in herself than she actually felt.

_But I saw that vision! That’s my future…I AM going to be a Jedi…and I’ll have Ben Solo at my side._

_Why does that make me feel even more brave?_

“I saw darkness.”

Rey blinked, zeroing her focus on Luke. He sighed, rain dripping from his matted beard.

“I’d sensed it building in him. I'd see it at moments during his training. But then one night I crept into his hut, to read his mind while he slept. I looked inside…and it was beyond what I ever imagined. Snoke had already turned his heart. He would bring destruction, and pain, and death, and the end of _everything_ I love because of what he would become. And for the briefest moment of pure instinct, I thought I could stop it. I raised my saber to kill my own padawan…my sister’s son…a child I’d _loved_.”

His voice cracked, pain and grief crossing his face. For the second time that evening and in spite of her anger, Rey’s heart ached for a broken, guilt-ridden Skywalker.

“It passed like a fleeting shadow,” Luke whispered. “And I was left with shame…and with consequences. The last things I saw were the eyes of a frightened boy whose master had failed him. He summoned his lightsaber to defend himself…and the next thing I knew, I was waking up in ruins.”

He shifted his position on his rocky, slippery seat. “I’m sorry, Rey. I suppose I’ve failed you both.”

Rey shook her head. “No, Master Skywalker. You’ve finally told me the whole truth—and I’m grateful.”

Luke nodded softly.

“But you failed _him_ by thinking his choice was made,” she added. “It wasn’t. He hadn’t decided yet to go to the Dark Side before that night, Luke! And there’s _still_ conflict in him!”

Luke frowned, his old cynicism returning. “How do you know?”

“Because—” Rey eagerly searched for the right words. “Because I _feel_ it. Every time we talk—”

“How long has _that_ been going on?”

In spite of the cold rain, she felt the color rush to her dripping face. “Since the day after I got here.”

“Oh, great. Six weeks of training, and _now_ you tell me.”

Rey dismissed his scorn; she didn’t have time for it. “When we talk, I feel the conflict in him. He’s _miserable_ , Luke. What he did to Han…it’s ripping him apart. He hates himself and he _wants_ to come home—he just doesn’t know how. But if someone could convince him there’s still hope for him, _that_ could shift the tide! This could be how we win!”

Luke sighed, shivering in the rain. “This is not going to go the way you think, Rey.”

Rey dropped to her knees in front of him, laying her icy hand over his. The man whose name once sparked hope and defiance glanced up at her—and in spite of everything, in spite of his own skepticism, she felt that same hope and defiance bloom in her own heart.

“It _is,”_ she insisted, holding his gaze. “Just now, when we touched hands, I saw his future—as solid as I'm seeing _you!_ If I go to him, Ben Solo _will_ turn.”

Luke tipped his head, pleading. “Rey, please. Don’t do this.”

Rey blinked, thought hard and fast…and sprang to her feet. Standing over him once more, she extended his father’s lightsaber to him.

 _Then go to the Resistance_ , she thought. _Help your sister. But don’t just sit here wallowing in your own misery._

But Luke just looked at the saber hilt, back up at her…and back at the ground with a sigh and the slightest shake of his head. Rey lowered the saber.

“Then he _is_ our last hope,” she murmured. And with that, she turned away.

* * *

Lightning fractured the sky as she scrambled up to what remained of her hut. Retrieving her staff, she seized her sodden supply bag and slung it over her shoulder. Luke’s apathy meant nothing to her now. She shoved it to the back of her mind and tried to focus on forming a plan of her own.

 _I’ve got to get to the_ Supremacy. _That’s where he is. How I know that, I can’t even say—but I KNOW it._

Through the darkness she could just make out Luke Skywalker still sitting morosely in the rain. Rey pulled in a deep breath. After all he’d accomplished, and even after the way he’d brought someone as horrible as Darth Vader back to the Light, he really _did_ want the Jedi to end. He was determined to let the Order die with him.

 _But just because_ he _has lost all hope doesn’t mean the Jedi were entirely useless_ , she reminded herself, her thoughts growing fiercer and more determined by the second. _If the Jedi really meant nothing, their stories would’ve meant nothing—and they_ didn’t _! I’m proof of that, aren’t I? Their stories kept me going on Jakku. They’ve kept the Resistance going. And Leia wouldn’t be fighting so hard if she didn’t believe the Light would_ win _._

 _This_ is _how we win. We fight for the good, even when it’s hard to find. Even when it’s buried deep in Darth Vader._

_Or Kylo Ren._

It hit her then: what she had to do, where she had to go. Spinning away from the desolate figure, Rey darted down the narrow paths of the island, all the way down to the huge gnarled tree where she and Luke had discussed the ancient texts. The rain was starting to let up by now. Flinging her wet hair out of her eyes, Rey ducked into the trunk. It was so dark in here, she couldn’t see a thing.

 _The lightsaber._ She flicked it on and immediately the interior of the trunk shone with its pure light. She let her eyes adjust for a moment before approaching the natural shelf where the dusty, fragile Jedi texts lay. Her heart fluttered with excitement, anticipation, and a nagging fear that she might get caught. She reached out—

“You are wise beyond your years, young Rey.”

With a shriek Rey whirled. In the steady light of the saber she saw a man, old but straight-backed, gentle-eyed and smiling. A blue light, softer than that of the saber, shimmered around the edges of his form. He wasn’t completely transparent, but she knew just by looking at him that if she tried to reach out and touch him, her hand would go straight through his brown-and-grey Jedi robes.

“Who—who are you?” she stammered.

His eyes crinkled at the corners. “My name is Obi-Wan Kenobi—though when your stubborn master first met me, he knew me only by the name of ‘Ben.’ ”

Rey blinked, confused. “ ‘Ben?’ ”

“Yes. Leia named her son after me. I was Luke’s first teacher…and long, _long_ ago, the Jedi who trained Anakin Skywalker.”

Rey remembered Luke’s words from weeks ago— _“_ _It was a Jedi Master who was responsible for the training and creation of Darth Vader_ _”—_ and her mouth fell open. Legends were crowding her small life faster than she could process them.

“Don’t be afraid, Child,” Obi-Wan said, taking a step closer. “Physically, I’m long dead—but in another sense, I’m as alive as you. You can put away that lightsaber now. I believe you’ll find I radiate enough light for you to see by.”

“Oh!” Rey sheepishly clicked off the saber. The trunk grew darker, but sure enough, she still saw him as well as most of her surroundings. “So you’re a…a ghost?”

His expression grew wry. “A Force-spirit, if you’d ever like to use a more dignified term…but yes, a ghost, for all intents and purposes. I’ve come to offer you assistance…a warning…and an encouragement.”

Rey swallowed hard. “Can I ask a question, then?”

“Of course.” His eyes twinkled. “Though I can’t guarantee a straight answer.”

“Tell me…” Rey hesitated. “Is…is Luke right? Is it really time for the Jedi to end?”

The ghost sighed. “The Jedi will never truly end. They represent all that is good in the world, just as the Sith represent all that is evil. They may go by different names throughout the ages, of course…and the Order itself certainly reacts and adapts to certain times and deeper insights into our nature. But no, it will never end. My student accuses us of hubris, but if he believes the Jedi will end simply because _he_ has given in to despair, he suffers from the same malady.”

Relief coursed through Rey. “I’m glad. Some of us need heroes. Even if they aren’t perfect.”

Obi-Wan smiled gently and approached the shelf. To her surprise, he lifted one of the old Jedi texts: clearly, he wasn’t quite as immaterial as she thought.

“You were going to take these,” he said. It wasn’t a question. Rey flushed and nodded.

“Good. They will serve you well. But you already have everything you need…right here.” He pointed at her head. “And here.” He pointed at her chest. “In the heart of the Jedi lies your strength, Rey. It has nothing to do with how much you know about the Force, how skilled you are with a lightsaber, or even who your parents are. Your courage, your faith, and your compassion… _that_ is what makes you strong. Do you believe that?”

Rey’s eyes welled with tears. “I…I _want_ to believe it.”

He gazed at her with such kindness and pride, she wanted to break down and have another good, cleansing cry. She gulped back the tears, however, as he handed the book to her. Her skin tingled where her hand brushed his.

“Believe it,” he said, “and stand on it. It’s the truth.”

She hugged the book to her chest—then quickly pulled it away, not wanting her soaked clothes to dampen the ragged cover. “Thank you. Can I ask another question?”

He chuckled. “Anything you like.”

“Am I right to try and rescue Ben Solo?”

“Ah. Now _here_ is where I deliver my warning. Yes, you’re right to try. And yes…the vision you both received is an accurate one.”

“That’s our future?” Rey cried.

“It is a _possible_ future,” Obi-Wan corrected. “There are only two other possibilities: one where he remains with Snoke and you become his sworn enemy…or one where you take _his_ hand and join the Dark.”

“ _What_?! Why would I do _that_? You just told me I have the heart of a Jedi! How could I—?”

“Calm yourself,” Obi-Wan soothed. “I told you, it is only a possibility—one you will have to guard against if things don’t go the way you hope they will.”

Rey dropped her gaze, suddenly unsure of herself.

“But,” Obi-Wan added, “if you succeed—if you rescue Ben Solo from the Darkness that entraps him—it won’t be an easy road for either of you. Watch for three dangers, young Rey: despair, anger, and fear. They’ve haunted him all his life, and he won’t be free of them overnight.”

She nodded thoughtfully. “All right…”

“But even as you stand vigilant against those dangers, search earnestly for three keys. Hope…forgiveness…and love.” His expression turned sad. “After a lifetime of torment, they are his only cures.”

Rey nodded again, more firmly this time. “I understand. Or, at least…I will do everything I can for him.”

“I have no doubt you will. When Luke recognized the conflict in Darth Vader, he did everything he could to bring him back to the Light. It was love and compassion that rescued Anakin Skywalker from the Dark, not might or even clever argument. You, I believe, are the first person to offer Ben Solo a similar way out in a long, long time.”

“I’m afraid that isn’t true,” Rey said softly. “Han begged him to come home, and he…he…”

Obi-Wan nodded. “He killed his own father.”

Rey shuddered and nodded. He lifted another book from the shelf and handed it to her.

“Tell me,” he ordered, “what you are to guard against.”

Rey took the book, stacking it atop the one she already held. “Despair…anger…and fear.”

“Very good. Watch for them in him as well as yourself.” He handed her a third book. “And what are the cures?”

“Hope.” Rey suddenly thought of Finn, his eyes alight with desperate hunger for freedom. “Forgiveness.” She remembered Han cupping his son’s cheek in his weathered hand. “Love.” The final image in the vision flashed through her head—the one where Ben Solo kissed her like she was the most precious thing in the whole galaxy—and that fierce, white-hot _something_ she felt every time she’d seen him smile stirred in her heart.

Obi-Wan handed her the final book. “These are your next steps, Rey. Wherever they take you…”

He looked her straight in the eye and closed his hands over her arms. She drew a shaky breath, the touch of a ghost sending goosebumps all over her skin.

“The Force will be with you,” he whispered. “ _Always_.”

Rey stared at him, unable to say a word until one of the books slipped in her arms. She gasped and caught it just in time—but when she looked up, the Jedi-master was gone.

* * *

When she stepped out the tree, the rain had slowed to a light drizzle. Rey dashed to the _Millennium Falcon_ as fast as she could, relieved that she didn’t have to work too hard to protect the texts from a downpour. She saw no sign of Luke, but she wasn’t about to risk running into him and having to explain where she was going with his books.

She pounded up the _Falcon_ ’s ramp. “Chewie! R2!”

Immediately she heard the scrambling weight of a heavy Wookiee in the rec area. He was probably enjoying a solitary game of holo-chess, if she had to guess; he _had_ seemed a bit bored when she last saw him. As soon as they saw each other in the winding corridor, however, concern sharpened his blue eyes. He roared his question in his own tongue: **_“Why do you look like a drowned pup?”_**

“Never mind that,” Rey said, fighting to keep a firm grip on the heavy books. “We’ve got to get off of Ach-To, Chewie. I’ll explain everything once we’re gone.”

**“What about Luke?”**

“Luke isn’t coming.”

Chewie frowned, cocking his head to one side. **“We can’t go back to Leia empty-handed. She’s counting on us to bring him back.”**

“I know,” Rey murmured. “But he’s not coming. He _refuses_ to…and I can’t wait here any longer.”

R2 beeped sadly, his light going from red to a dreary purple. Rey set the books on the table and stroked the droid’s domed head. 

“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I did and said everything I could. But now I know what we’ve _got_ to do next. Do you think you can get us off the planet on your own, Chewie, while I get out of these soaked clothes? I’m going to freeze to death if I don’t change.”

He snorted. **“Puny humans—you’d live longer if you had fur.”**

In spite of herself, Rey smirked. He waved her off and headed to the cockpit, an answer in the affirmative if ever she heard or saw one. She spun on her heel and hurried to the small cabin she’d claimed as her own, stopping along the way only to slam her hand against the button that’d retract the ramp and seal the _Falcon_ off from Ach-To.

 _Be safe, Luke_ , she thought, allowing herself one last glance at his secret paradise. _Be safe…and change your mind someday._

* * *

Within minutes her clothes lay in a sopping heap on the floor of her cabin. How General Organa had known exactly what would suit a former scavenger and what would fit her, Rey still had no idea—but Leia _had_ packed an extra outfit for her that was just as functional as the one she’d cast aside.

It was also more…appropriate. Rey stared at herself in the ‘fresher mirror, surprised by her own reflection. The grey tunic looked and felt more like something a Jedi should wear: flowing, easy, graceful. She’d left her damp hair down, too. It curled a little as it tumbled over her shoulders, a far cry from the severe practicality of three knotted buns. 

She looked more… _right._ As if she was finally discovering where she belonged.

With a quick, satisfied nod, Rey hurried to the cockpit. She knew from the hum and rattle of the ship that they were, at least, in hyperspace. R2 beeped a greeting as she entered the cockpit. Chewie glanced over his shoulder before returning to his instruments.

 **“We shouldn’t have left Luke behind,”** he grumbled.

Rey squeezed into the co-pilot’s seat. “Should I have dragged him in here kicking and screaming, then? Or should I have asked _you_ to do that on the first day?”

He snorted softly and said nothing in reply, which she took to mean that he conceded the point. She clasped her hands in her lap and pulled in a bracing breath.

“Besides,” she said, “what we need to do, we need to do without him. He’d only…complicate things.”

Chewie peered at her. **“What exactly _are_ we doing?”**

Rey held his gaze. “We’re going to rescue Ben Solo.”

The cockpit went dead-silent, except for a startled “ _Wheeeeeeeee?!”_ from R2. Chewie narrowed his eyes.

**“Rescue the Cub? He doesn’t _want_ to be rescued. Not after what he did.”**

“You’re wrong, Chewie. The Force has been letting us see each other ever since I got to Ach-To—and not just see each other, but know each other’s thoughts and feelings. He _hates_ himself for what he did. He hates himself so much, it’s _killing_ him!”

Chewie shot her a shocked look when she first mentioned the connection; now he looked away, gripping the controls a little tighter. Rey saw the flex of his muscles and laid her hand on his forearm.

“I saw what he could be, Chewie,” she whispered, “and it’s _wonderful_. And I know you love him. You’re one of the finest marksmen in the Galaxy, aren’t you? You could’ve killed him with your bow on Starkiller Base if you’d really wanted to.”

He snatched his arm away from her touch. **“You don’t know anything about it, Girl-Cub.”**

“I know a lot more than you think I do,” Rey shot back. “And I know that Ben Solo isn’t beyond hope. If you love him—and if you trust me—you’ll turn this ship around and bring me to the _Supremacy._ If I go to him, he _will_ leave the First Order and join us. Please, Chewie…you’ve _got_ to believe me.”

At that, he looked sharply at her. Rey held her breath, refusing to even blink. For what felt like an eternity he said nothing, did nothing, _indicated_ nothing...

But then he sighed, dropped his gaze, and punched something into the ship’s computer. Rey felt the _Falcon_ shift, creak, and turn.

 **“The _Supremacy_ should be easy to find,” **Chewie muttered. **“A pilot would have to be either blind or a kriffing idiot to miss its radiation signature.”**

A brilliant smile exploded over Rey’s face before she could stop it. “Thank you. AndI _do_ have a plan. Care to hear it?”

He glanced at her, half-amused, half-incredulous, and offered a wry shrug. Rey leaned forward, her elbows on her knees.

“All right, here’s what we’ll do. And you’re in on this, too, R2, so listen closely…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is me being really salty about Obi-Wan, Anakin, and Yoda not plotting an Emergency Intervention on Ben Solo's behalf at some point in the Sequel Trilogy. Force Ghosts are gonna have agency in my alternate Reylo'verse. I'm just sayin'.


	5. The Supremacy

_And all those things I didn't say_

_Wrecking balls inside my brain_

_I will scream them loud tonight_

_Can you hear my voice this time?_

_—Rachel Platten, “Fight Song”_

The summons to the Throne Room came before Ben could fully process the change that had come over him. His head felt clearer and his heart lighter than they had in _years_. And the more he considered it, the more certain he was that that _had_ been his father—not just a vision cobbled together by the Force, but _him_.

How he could’ve appeared, Ben had no clue. Dad hadn’t been a Jedi. He’d never held much interest in the Jedi Order, let alone shown any sensitivity to the Force.

 _So what—or who—pulled_ those _strings?_ He racked his brain for answers, trying for the first time in a _very_ long time to remember what he’d learned under Uncle Luke’s tutelage…but he got nothing. Even the wisest Jedi probably knew little about how the afterlife worked.

 _And yet…_ and yet a calm, quiet confidence washed over him. Dad forgave him. He’d forgiven him the instant Ben committed the vilest, filthiest, most unforgivable deed of all. The thought brought fresh tears to the young man’s eyes, and it was all he could do to keep his resolution to _not_ break down and weep.

It was a good thing he’d maintained some composure, too. The intercom on his desk chirped; Ben pulled in a bracing breath, schooled his expression into something more frigid and haughty, and clicked the button.

“What is it?” he demanded.

A First Order lieutenant appeared in miniature holographic form. “Sir, the Supreme Leader wishes to see you. At once.”

“I’m on my way.” Ben clicked off the intercom and tried to get his racing heart under control. Snoke had sent his thoughts in this direction not ten minutes ago, and Ben had barely disguised his emotional turmoil in time. Did he still suspect something? As far as Ben knew, he’d been able to completely hide his feelings for Rey from the Supreme Leader. Snoke never mentioned her anymore except in passing. It was as if he’d dismissed her as a possible threat.

 _Whatever happens_ , Ben thought fiercely, _I’ll protect her if it’s the last thing I do. I swear it, Dad._

He got no response except for a rush of gentle warmth from the Light. This time, he didn’t shun it.

He strode down the gleaming black corridors of Snoke’s flagship, keeping his gaze straight ahead and coolly ignoring any officers or Stormtroopers as he passed them. When he reached the Throne Room he paused at the door, throwing up every mental shield he ever had. He tried to focus on Darkness, on rage and resentment, on pain. They felt hollow and weak in comparison to the hope swelling in him now, but he did his best. Snoke had to believe he was still Kylo Ren, the Dark Side’s greatest trophy since Anakin Skywalker.

Only when he felt sure of his safety did he throw the doors open.

Snoke sat on his throne, his small blue eyes keen and penetrating within his scarred, bulbous head. Ben sank down on one knee. The floor was so shiny, he could see his own reflection in the black tiles.

“You summoned me, Master,” he said, startled by how hard it was to keep his voice low and toneless.

“I did,” Snoke replied, his tone unnervingly warm and interested. “I thought I sensed some distress coming from your cabin. Are you all right?”

“I’m fine. It was just a nightmare.”

“You’re having those all too frequently, my boy. A far less forgiving master might worry that his apprentice had been…emotionally compromised.”

Ben lifted his head, met Snoke’s veiled taunting with a stern glare of his own. “A less resolved apprentice might share that concern, as well.”

Snoke smiled. “You _are_ resolved, then?”

“Completely.”

“Good.” Snoke rose, golden robes shimmering and rustling as he towered above Ben. “Then I have a new task for you…one that will bring you immense satisfaction.” He stopped no more than a foot in front of Ben and leaned close. “The Girl is coming.”

Ben jerked his head up, startled—but the evil grin on Snoke’s face suggested revenge, nothing more. “The Girl?”

“Of course. The one who bested you on Starkiller Base.”

Ben blinked, shook his head slightly. “How do you know?”

“I sense her presence. She’s on her way here…to _you_.” Snoke chuckled. “Perhaps she’s arrogant enough to think she can finish you off this time. Or perhaps she thinks you’re…vulnerable to her feminine wiles.”

Ben scowled, desperately trying to keep his mind guarded and his emotions under tight control. “Then she’s a bigger fool than I took her for. She’s strong in the Force but untrained and undisciplined. I won’t be taken by surprise this time. I promise.”

“See that you aren’t,” Snoke muttered. He turned, striding back to his throne. “When the _Supremacy_ ’s tractor beam pulls her in, I want you to take her into custody and bring her straight here. What she lacks in discretion she may make up for in information. We know she has Skywalker’s location…and now that Leia Organa and her rats have fled D’Qar in disarray, the Girl may even know where they’re headed.”

Ben’s breath caught. “The rebels have left D’Qar?”

“Yes, indeed—and heading, it seems, to Crait. We’re in hot pursuit at the moment. You haven’t received the bulletin?”

“I’ve been occupied with reports. I assumed General Hux would handle any incoming updates.”

“Hmm.” Snoke frowned as he lowered himself into his throne. Ben waited, hoping and praying the lie—and the mental shields—would hold.

“Go,” Snoke finally ordered with a sigh and a wave of his hand. “And don’t return unless you’re bringing the Girl to me.”

“Yes, Master,” Ben said, lowering his head again in deference before rising smoothly to his feet. He kept his eyes down as he took two backward steps, then turned and strode out of the room.

Rey was coming. _Why is she coming?! How am I supposed to protect her_ here _, on the_ Supremacy _?!_

He didn’t take a deep breath again until he was well away from the Throne Room—and even then, it took everything in him to keep the confused panic at bay.

* * *

Chewie was right: a pilot would have to be either blind or stupid to miss the _Supremacy_. The _Falcon_ was still in hyperspace, but the nav-com made it clear that as soon as they jumped out, they’d be dangerously close to Snoke’s flagship.

Rey’s mouth felt dry as she made a few last minute preparations. The Jedi texts she’d tucked safely into a drawer; R2 was in charge of Leia’s beacon. But for some reason, she and Chewie hadn’t been able to make contact with Leia or the Resistance. Fear tugged at the back of her mind, but Rey dared not dwell on it too long. She had too much to think about as it was.

“As soon as I launch,” she told Chewie, climbing into one of the _Falcon_ ’s escape pods, “you jump back out of range. Stay there until you get my signal for where to rendezvous.”

 **“You’re sure you know how to send a signal from this thing?”** Chewie asked anxiously. **“It’s not easy. You have to activate this nav-com here before you turn on the radio, and if it sparks—”**

“Just hit it—I know.” Rey let out a quick, hard breath. “And Chewie, if you see Finn before I do, tell him…”

_Tell him I’m sorry. Tell him to fight the good fight. Tell him I’ll do my best to find him again. Tell him—_

**“Tell him you’ll be home soon?”** Chewie offered helpfully.

Rey smiled. “Yeah, perfect. Tell him that.”

The Wookiee offered her the closest thing to a grin she’d seen on his gruff visage. She wrapped her fingers around the hilt of the Skywalker lightsaber, pulled in a deep breath, and slid herself into the escape pod.

It was horribly cramped and musty inside. As Chewie locked and sealed the hatch, panic shot through her; claustrophobia was a new terror for a girl who’d spent her life in the wide-open desert. Rey tried to lie still as she clutched the saber to her chest, shutting her eyes and gulping hard as the _Falcon_ dropped out of hyperspace and released the pod.

In just a few minutes, a sudden, magnetic _thump_ told her the _Supremacy_ had latched onto her. Rey kept her eyes closed; if she opened them she’d be much too aware of the closeness of her quarters. Not until cold light grazed her eyelids did she dare take a peek. By that point she’d been drawn into the bowels of the enormous ship…which meant she was almost there. Almost to Ben.

Almost ready to stand before him, face-to-face, and make her appeal to his conscience and the Light within him…just like Luke had done with Darth Vader. It had worked then. Why shouldn’t it work now?

 _“Darth Vader didn’t kill his own father,”_ Ben had pointed out morosely during one of their conversations. For a moment, her own mind offered it up as an argument, but Rey stubbornly dismissed it. It wasn’t too late, not even for Kylo Ren.

 _THUD._ The pod came to a solid halt. Rey opened both eyes with a start, gripping the lightsaber even more tightly. She heard footsteps and muffled voices outside. Her blood thundered in her ears as the hatch clicked, decompressed, and flew open.

It took her a moment to adjust to the glaring fluorescent light. When her vision cleared, her breath caught.

 _He_ stood over her—tall, dark, and utterly expressionless. Rey opened her mouth, but he strode briskly away from the pod. Two Stormtroopers stepped into the place he’d vacated…and one of them held a pair of metal cuffs. Rey gulped.

“Get up,” the Stormtrooper snapped. Rey sat up, but moved too slowly for the impatient Troopers; the one not holding the cuffs grabbed her by the arm and yanked her out of the pod so roughly, she nearly stumbled. Immediately Ben—Kylo—whoever he was at the moment—spun on his heel, his hands clasped behind his back.

“Careful,” he ordered, his voice low and threatening. “The Supreme Leader wants her unharmed. You don’t want to have to explain scraped knees or bruises.”

“No, sir,” the Stormtroopers blurted in unison. One of them took Rey’s saber; while the other cuffed her, he brought the weapon to Kylo Ren. Rey watched as he took it, handling it with unmistakable reverence.

_Please, Ben. If that vision had any effect on you, please…please look at me._

As if he’d heard her, his dark gaze flicked up from the lightsaber. Her heart jumped into her throat.

“I’ll take her to the Supreme Leader,” he said, closing the distance between them again. “You two can go back to your business.”

“Yes, sir!” crowed the Stormtroopers—and off they went without so much as a backward glance. Kylo Ren, however, grabbed Rey by the elbow and steered her quickly towards an elevator.

Six weeks ago she would’ve recoiled from his touch. Now she tried desperately to reach out and detect any of the hopeful yearning she’d felt in him recently. If he noticed her probing, he gave no sign of it as they entered the elevator. He punched a button in the panel, then released her arm and took a deliberate step away from her. 

“You don’t have to do this,” Rey whispered. “I’ve felt the conflict in you. It’s tearing you apart.”

He fixed his eyes straight ahead. But if the past month and a half had taught her one thing, it was that Kylo Ren— _Ben Solo_ —had a tell. Whenever that treacherous little muscle beneath his eye twitched, she knew her darts had hit home.

 _“_ Ben.” She breathed the name, and his gaze snapped on her so fast, all the color rushed to her face. He _was_ listening, then—and not only that, but he’d responded to _that_ name. If anything could give her hope, it was that. The words tumbled out of her, desperate and pleading, as the elevator began its ascent.

“When we touched hands, I saw your future,” she whispered. “Just the shape of it, but solid and clear! You will _not_ bow before Snoke!” She took an eager step nearer, pausing only when she’d gotten so close, he had to bend his head slightly in order to keep his focus on her. Before she could stop herself, Rey’s gaze slipped down to his lips…and she was keenly aware that his had done the same.

_Don’t think about that last vision. Concentrate. You have a job to do here._

“You’ll turn,” she whispered. “ _I’ll help you_. I saw it, Ben…”

“I saw it, too,” he murmured. “But you know as well as I do that there’s no hope like that left for me. The best I can do is get you off this ship alive. Search your feelings, Rey. You know it’s true.”

“But I _don’t_ ,” Rey shot back. “Not at all. I’ve watched you change—the Light is calling you! And do you know what I _do_ know?”

He frowned slightly. She took another small step closer, the toes of her soft boots touching his.

“Hope is like the sun,” she whispered, reciting something Leia had told her all those weeks ago, right before she left for Ach-To. “If you only believe it when you can see it, you’ll never make it through the night.”

He gave a slight start and his lips parted—but before he could speak, the elevator chimed. Immediately the surprise and longing that had filled his eyes drained away: the stony face of Kylo Ren snapped back in place and he grabbed her arm, pushing her into a throne room decked in black and red.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so excited about the next chapter, I may just have to post it tomorrow... ;)


	6. The Throne Room

_You are the answer I've waited for_

_All of my life..._

_—Frozen II, “Show Yourself”_

Until she’d joined the Resistance, Rey had no idea who Supreme Leader Snoke was—and she would’ve had no reason to care about his existence. She’d been a lonely scavenger whose greatest fear was that Unkar Plutt might not sell her anymore portion bread. Galactic politics barely touched the fringes of her mind.

During her short time on the Resistance base, however, she’d heard all the bloodcurdling stories about his rise to power, how he’d challenged the New Republic, enslaved vulnerable planets in the Outer Rim, and ensnared the young and brilliant Prince of New Alderaan, the most powerful Jedi since Luke Skywalker, as both his apprentice and his greatest weapon.

Now she—a scavenger, a nobody, and little more than a very inexperienced padawan—was actually facing him. And she didn’t even know if her only friend here on the _Supremacy_ was willing to be a _true_ friend.

_Please, Ben. Please don’t go this way…_

But the solid, silent presence behind her back offered no reassurance.

Snoke laughed as they approached his throne.

“Well done, my good and faithful apprentice!” he bellowed, his voice deeper and richer than Rey would’ve expected from such a hideous form. “My faith in you is restored.”

Kylo Ren released Rey’s arm and took a knee, a smooth, elegant gesture as the Skywalker lightsaber sailed out of his hand and into Snoke’s. Rey threw her shoulders back, tipped her chin a little higher, and fixed her steady, defiant gaze on the Supreme Leader. 

“Young Rey,” he crooned, leaning forward in his throne. “Welcome. Come closer, child.”

Rey gritted her teeth and didn’t move a muscle. An evil, sneering grin crossed the hateful face.

“So much strength,” he chuckled. “Darkness rises, and light to meet it! I warned my young apprentice that as he grew stronger, his equal in the Light would rise. Skywalker, I assumed…wrongly.” Snoke’s smile faded. “Closer, I said.”

Rey clenched her fists, but her feet suddenly dragged against the smooth black tile against her will. She tried to fight it, tried to dig her toes into the floor, even tried pleading with the Force to help her—but she was no match for Snoke’s will. And that frightened her more than anything else.

_Luke was right. I’m not ready, am I?_

_“You already have everything you need.”_ Obi-Wan’s voice wafted back to her, quiet and sure. _“In the heart of the Jedi lies your strength, Rey. Your courage, your faith, and your compassion…_ that _is what makes you strong. Do you believe that?”_

Rey tightened her fists, threw her head back, and refocused her steely gaze on Snoke. _In the heart of the Jedi lies my strength. In the heart of the Jedi…the heart of the Jedi…_

“You underestimate Skywalker,” she declared, her voice clear and authoritative. “ _And_ Ben Solo… _and_ me. It will be your downfall.”

Snoke’s eyes widened. “Oh…have you seen something? A weakness in my apprentice? Is that why you came?”

Rey hesitated. Snoke’s feigned incredulity dissolved in a loud, cruel laugh.

“Young fool! It was _I_ who bridged your minds. Yes,” he hissed, recognizing the horror that flooded her face before she could stop it, “ _I_ stoked Ren's conflicted soul. I knew he wasn't strong enough to hide it from you— and _you_ were not wise enough to resist the bait.”

For the first time since she stepped out of the escape pod, Rey’s mouth went dry and her heart sank to her toes—not because she’d been betrayed by the young man behind her (she hadn’t, _he_ hadn’t), but because… _because we’ve been manipulated?_

_No, no, I can’t believe that! This was real! It was the Light! Snoke wouldn’t have tried to show us something beautiful!_

“And now,” Snoke snarled, dragging her closer and closer until Rey could smell his rotten breath, “you will give me Skywalker. And then I will kill you with the cruelest stroke.”

She bared her teeth, unable to move anything else. “ _No_.”

“ _Yes_ ,” Snoke growled. Rey gasped as he flung her away from him, suspending her between the black floor and the vaulted ceiling. Her arms were tugged by invisible restraints away from her body, her head thrown back at a painful angle—and the next thing she knew, she felt fingers in her mind. Cold, bony, groping fingers, brutal and violating.

By comparison, Kylo Ren’s sifting of her mind on Starkiller Base had been clinical.

“Give…me… _everything,_ ” Snoke commanded.

“No!” Rey screamed, trying and failing to tear those horrible fingers out of her head before they found her memories of Ach-To…of Luke…of Ben. “No! _No!_ ”

* * *

Ben couldn’t watch. Rey hung suspended yards above him, screaming in agony—and he couldn’t do a thing about it. He’d never felt so helpless. It didn’t help that his silent promise to his father kept running through his head like a relentless, condemning drumbeat.

 _Whatever happens_ , _I’ll protect her if it’s the last thing I do. I swear it, Dad. I swear it…I swear it…_

So Ben kept his eyes down, steeling himself against Rey’s bloodcurdling screams—but his thoughts, heavily shielded, worked faster than lightning. The Skywalker saber lay on the arm of Snoke’s throne… _his_ lightsaber was clipped to his belt…twelve Praetorian Guards in the room…and Hux and his Stormtroopers were within calling distance.

The odds were bad. Very, very bad.

_But I’m a Solo. And you don’t tell a Solo the odds._

With one final, choking cry, Rey dropped to the floor in front of him, a bruised and gasping heap. Ben jerked his gaze up from the floor, but she had her back to him as she gulped for air and propped herself onto her elbow. Snoke chortled with satisfaction.

“Well, well!” he cried. “I did not expect Skywalker to be so wise. We will give him and the Jedi Order the death he desires. After the Rebels are gone, we will go to his planet and obliterate the entire island.”

Before Ben could attempt to reach her mind, Rey sprang to her feet and stretched out a hand. The Skywalker lightsaber flew off Snoke’s chair towards her—but Snoke recalled it before it could land in her palm. It whipped perilously close to Ben before whacking Rey in the back of the head. She reeled with a cry.

“Such spunk,” Snoke taunted. “Look here now.”

He seized her again, capturing her with tendrils of Darkness and dragging her to a nearby window-port. Ben watched, his own pulse thrumming in his ears as the port cleared and he glimpsed several small ships under fire. He knew as soon as he saw them what they were…and who would be on them.

“The entire Resistance on those transports,” Snoke said, addressing Rey…and Rey alone. “Soon they will all be gone. For you, all is lost.”

Rey, however, wasn’t about to give up. She whirled, stretching out a hand again—and this time Ben’s saber flew off his belt and into her palm. She activated it without hesitation, the crimson, flickering blade casting fearsome shadows on her young, beautiful face. If Ben weren’t so paralyzed with fear, desperation, and frantic strategic gymnastics, he would’ve been transfixed by the sight.

The Praetorian Guards, by contrast, were not impressed: they activated their own weapons, prepared to strike her down.

“Ooh!” Snoke cried, contemptuous amusement oozing from him. “And _still_ that fiery spit of hope. You have the spirit of a true Jedi!”

Rey let out a wordless, furious cry and raced towards him, the red saber raised. Snoke flicked his hand and she went flying again, tumbling onto her back and crashing to the floor. The lightsaber deactivated and rolled across the tiles…

Right at Ben’s bent knee.

He stared at it, then at Snoke. His master smirked. He was so sure of what young Solo would do. Ben clenched his teeth, anger roiling deep in his chest.

But for the first time in a long, long time, the anger wasn’t dark. It was fierce and powerful, yes—but it didn’t come from a place of raw, seeting hatred.

He wasn’t angry because he wanted Snoke to pay. He was angry because…

_Because I love Rey. I love her. I love her more than I hate him—and I have to protect her._

The thought hit him like a plasma blast, but he had no time to mull over it. Snoke jerked Rey to her knees, swiveling her to face Ben.

“My worthy apprentice,” Snoke said, his voice rising like the climax of a symphony. “Son of darkness...heir apparent to Lord Vader...where there was conflict, I now sense resolve. Where there was weakness, strength. Complete your training, and fulfill your destiny!”

_Resolve and strength…yes. Oh, yes…I have both of those things now._

Ben reached for his lightsaber and got to his feet. Rey stared up at him, breathing hard. He’d seen that terror in her eyes once before, in the forests on Takodana. It hadn’t made a difference to him then; she’d just been another piece of the puzzle Snoke had given him to solve, another mind to plunder for clues about his uncle’s location.

But now she was the girl who’d coaxed him into telling her things he couldn’t even tell himself. She’d teased him, made him laugh for the first time in years. She’d reached out to him across vast distances…and she still believed he could return to the Light when no one else would or could.

She was the girl he’d fallen in love with without even realizing what was happening to him.

“I know what I have to do,” he murmured, holding her gaze, hoping she wouldn’t hate him for this.

Her breath came harder and faster; he could tell she was struggling against Snoke’s paralysis. “ _Ben_ …”

“You think you can turn him?” Snoke cried. “ _Pathetic_ child. I cannot be betrayed. I cannot be beaten! I see his mind, his every intent. _Yesssss_ …I see him turning the lightsaber to strike true…”

Ben aimed the silent hilt at Rey’s chest, subtly tucking his other hand behind his leg.

“And now, foolish child, he ignites it…and _kills_ his true enemy!”

Ben clenched his hidden hand. The Skywalker lightsaber activated with a resounding whine and Rey fell to the floor. _Thud_. She twisted her head and Ben heard her gasp.

Snoke might’ve gasped, too, if he had breath left in his lungs. He just looked down at the lightsaber slicing through his torso with a look of dazed surprise. Ben pressed his lips tightly together.

 _“You’re right,”_ he thought, sending his low, resolute voice straight to Snoke’s twisted and already dying mind. “ _I struck true. I’ve killed my true enemy.”_

Snoke’s beady blue eyes widened for a fraction of a second. Ben snapped his fingers again and the lightsaber shot free; the upper half of Snoke’s body tumbled to the floor, the activated hilt went flying—

And Rey caught it just as Ben knew she would. Her eyes were locked on him now, wide with shock and a single, desperate question. He drew a shuddering breath, met her gaze, thumbed his lightsaber to life…and smiled.

Rey smiled back, her question answered. Then they whirled, back to back, to face the Praetorian Guards who had so stupidly allowed the assassination of their master on their watch.

* * *

This was Rey’s first real fight since Starkiller Base (the angry skirmish with Luke didn’t count), and it was as different as night and day. Now she had Ben Solo at her back—and what an ally he could be.

Funny, how she was able to anticipate his every move. He seemed able to anticipate hers as well, the two of them leaping and thrusting and swiping in sync with each other. They fended off the Praetorian Guards from the center of the room for what felt like several minutes, never letting any of them get close. At one point he even crouched low, allowing her to fling herself onto his back and deliver a ferocious kick to one guard’s head.

 _How did we do that without even_ discussing _it?! What is going on?!_

No time to think: the nature of the fight was drawing them away from each other. Rey spun away from him, taking on a Guard twice her size, whirling and spinning her lightsaber like a knife through butter. She heard Ben grunt with effort, saw him toss a Guard to the floor. Three more surrounded him now—but before she could run to help him, another huge Guard drove her towards the wall.

 _How many of them are there, anyway?!_ She jumped over Snoke’s severed hand. _He killed Snoke for me. He saved my life…he killed his master…he saved me…why did he save me?_

She screamed, letting the adrenaline drive her forward, and plunged her lightsaber towards her opponent. The Guard, however, moved faster, seizing her arm, pinning her upper body against his chest. Rey’s heart jumped into her throat and she looked instinctively towards Ben. He, too, was caught—but his opponent held a heavy red staff against his throat, choking the life out of him.

 _No no no—not on my watch!_ Rey thought fast and opened her palm. Her saber dropped; the Guard, startled by the sight of that blinding beam of light heading straight for his foot, lurched back and released her. Rey crouched, caught the hilt before it hit the ground, and slammed it into the Guard. Then she spun around.

“Ben!” she screamed.

His face had contorted in pain and suffocation, but his dark eyes locked on her. Rey deactivated the saber and tossed it. Ben thrust out a hand, catching it with the Force, and thumbed it alive. One quick click and then another, on and off again.

The saber sliced through his assailant’s helmet in a brief flash. The Guard went limp. Ben gasped for air and flung the impotent staff away from his neck.

And then…silence. Ben staggered to his feet, staring at her. Rey stared back, not sure whether to laugh or cry or stay where she was or run to him or—

“The fleet,” she gasped, running to the window-port. “Order them to stop firing! There’s still time to save the fleet!”

“Grab my lightsaber,” he ordered.

Rey hesitated only a second before darting to where his lightsaber had fallen at some point in the skirmish. As her fingers closed around the hilt, he marched to the window-port and the panel beneath it. A small holographic figure with slicked-back, red hair and a crisp uniform appeared as soon as Ben pressed a button.

“Ren,” the man on the other end said, contempt lacing his heavy Imperial accent. “What do _you_ want?”

“I have orders from the Supreme Leader,” Ben said coldly. “Cease all fire on the rebel fleet.”

Rey tried to come closer, but Ben held out a palm well out of the officer’s line of vision. She understood the gesture and stayed back.

“Cease all fire?!” the officer spluttered. “But we almost have them! If we can prevent them from landing on Crait—”

“Do you want to take your objections to the Supreme Leader himself, Hux? Or should _I_ tell him you have a problem with his strategy?”

The officer opened his mouth, snapped it shut, and opened it again. “Fine. But I hope I’ll get an explanation for this at some point.”

“Oh, you will,” Ben snapped, severing the connection before Hux could offer a retort. He marched towards Rey, tearing off his gloves.

“I give him five minutes before he starts asking more questions,” he said, flinging the gloves away.

“Five minutes,” Rey whispered, thinking fast. “The _Falcon_ isn’t far, we can—”

The sentence ended in a gasp as he took her face in his massive hands and slanted his lips firmly against hers. The same fierce warmth she’d felt whenever he looked at her a certain way filled her chest and made her head light; she heard herself sigh, gripped the back of his tunic, and kissed him back as best as she knew how.

Since she’d never been kissed before she didn’t know much, but he didn’t seem to mind. When he finally drew back, looking as surprised and breathless as she felt, he stroked his thumbs across her flushed cheeks. 

“I’ve been wanting to do that for a while,” he murmured, his voice raspy and thicker than she’d ever heard it.

Rey reached up, closing her hands over his wrists. “Is it…are you…?”

He raised his eyebrows. “You have an _uncanny_ habit of never finishing your sentences.”

She laughed shakily, then grew serious again and looked him dead in the eye. “Is it really _you_?”

His eyes softened and, wonder of wonders, he smiled— _really_ smiled—just like she’d imagined it: dimples, crinkles at the corners of his eyes, smile-lines around his mouth. He let out a breathless laugh of his own and ran his fingers through the sweat-damp hair around her face.

“It’s me,” he whispered. “It’s _me_.”

The connection between them, whatever it was, hummed with joy, relief, and _hope_. Rey smiled, tears welling, but before she could speak again he pressed a firm kiss to her forehead and lowered his hands from her face.

“We can finish this conversation later,” he said, offering her the Skywalker hilt. “Right now, we need to get out of here. Where did you say the _Falcon_ was?”

Rey eagerly took her weapon and handed him his own. “In hyperspace, waiting for us. Chewie’s monitoring a shielded radio channel. All I have to do is hail him, and he’ll come for us.”

“And what are we leaving the _Supremacy_ in?”

She shot him a wry look. “I was hoping _you’d_ have an idea.”

He raised his eyebrows. “What if I might not have wanted to leave with you? What if I’d asked _you_ to stay?” He let his gaze drift to the hewn body of his old master. “What if I’d decided I wanted to set myself up in _his_ place? What then?”

Rey gripped her saber a little tighter—not because she was frightened of the challenging timbre of his voice, but because it was oddly difficult to put her own heart into mere words.

“I knew you would turn,” she said, simple and honest. “The Force would never have given us that vision if that weren’t true.”

He stared at her, incredulous and amazed—and she suddenly realized she’d never seen him so expressive. It was like he’d been wearing another, invisible mask all this time, not to mention an invisible voice modulator. The low, toneless quality of his voice had dropped away, its pitch slightly higher and far less controlled.

 _Boyish._ He sounded—and looked—so much more _boyish._

He held out his bare palm. Rey laid her own against it, and he curved his fingers over her hand.

“Come on, Rey of Jakku,” he whispered, a glimmer of mischief in his warm dark eyes. “I _do_ have an idea.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, I admit...I had WAY too much fun writing this chapter, haha! What will our intrepid babies do next???


	7. The Escape

_My Dearly Beloved,_

_Be strong, I shall be there_

_Always here beside you_

_So, keep your head held high,_

_The shadows of this world_

_Will try to steal you away into their arms_

_But you belong in mine_

_—Kingdom Hearts, “Dearly Beloved”_

“Shouldn’t I have a disguise?” Rey whispered as they reached the closed doors of the Throne Room. “What if someone sees us?”

The doors hissed open; Ben looked both ways up and down the corridor. “You don’t need a disguise. Just shield yourself.”

“What?”

He paused, looked down at her. “How did you get out of the interrogation room on Starkiller Base?”

She frowned. “I…I tricked the Stormtrooper. I ordered him to let me go.”

“But you didn’t just order him, did you? You must have used the Force.”

Rey nodded. Ben shrugged.

“Do it again—but this time, tell anyone we see that you’re not really there.”

“But—“

“We’re two of the most powerful Force-users in the Galaxy, Rey. I know what you’re capable of. So _do it_.”

Her hazel eyes flashed for a moment with irritation, then simmered down again into resolve. She nodded, gave his hand a little squeeze. Ben’s heart lurched at the pressure—no one had held his hand in so long, he’d forgotten what it felt like—but he squeezed her hand back and stepped quickly out into the corridor.

Officers coming. Ben gripped Rey’s hand tightly. She threw her shoulders back, looking straight at the two officers—who, to Ben’s relief, looked only at him with undisguised nervousness.

“I’m not really here,” Rey whispered, her voice low and steady. “I’m not really here.”

The officers inclined their heads respectfully to Kylo Ren. “Sir.”

Ben nodded crisply and looked away. As soon as the officers were out of earshot, Rey shot him a wide-eyed, giddy look.

“It _worked!_ ” she whisper-squealed.

“Of course it did. Now concentrate. Stormtroopers coming.”

She hauled in a deep breath and squared her shoulders again. Ben chewed the inside of his cheek to keep from smiling. She was as fascinating, beautiful, and adorable in real life as she’d been in their mysterious meetings.

_I did it, Dad. I protected her—and I didn’t even draw on the Dark to do it._

The next time he heard footsteps, however, it took no effort to reach out with the Force and recognize Hux’s approach. Ben jerked Rey down a side path, pressing his back against the wall. Sure enough, when he leaned his head forward he saw the back of Hux’s head and knew from the general’s staccato walking pattern that he was headed straight for the Throne Room.

“I wish he weren’t so predictable,” Ben muttered. “We could’ve used a little longer than five minutes.”

“What now?” Rey whispered.

He waited until he was sure Hux was gone before they ventured into the main corridor again. This time he broke into a run. Rey kept up with his long strides, which surprised him until he remembered she was a fit, wiry scavenger: she knew how to make speed. He didn’t stop until they’d reached the store of escape pods. He paused in front of the largest one.

“Snoke’s escape ship,” he explained, drumming a sequence on the instrument panel. “I would’ve evacuated with him in the event of an attack, so there’s plenty of room for both of us.”

The hatch hissed open. Rey scrambled inside; Ben shut the hatch behind them and activated the computer inside.

“ _Identification,”_ the AI intoned.

“Kylo Ren.” _And may that be the last time I ever use that name._

“ _Identity recognized. You may proceed with evacuation procedures.”_

Ben initiated the memorized sequence. “Buckle up. It may get bumpy.”

Rey promptly sat down in one of the seats and strapped herself in. Ben finished the procedure but didn’t sit down; he just gripped one of the handlebars and braced himself as the pod barreled out of its chute and into open space. He handed her a communication device. Rey quickly signaled the _Falcon_ on the secret channel _._

“Chewie! Chewie, are you there?”

It was surreal, hearing her call out like that. Ben shivered, remembering the last time he’d seen the Wookiee.

 _The roar, anguished to the core, followed by a blast from the bowcaster…the bowcaster Chewie had taught_ him _how to use long ago…_

The comm crackled with Chewie’s voice. **“We’re here! Give me your coordinates!”**

Rey glanced at Ben; he silently pointed at the computer.

“Bearing 12-5-9-0-423!” Rey cried. “And hurry, Chewie. The Resistance is under attack, and Snoke’s people are about to find out what’s happened!”

**“What _has_ happened? Tell me, Girl-Cub!”**

Ben smiled a little at that. _Girl-Cub._ Chewie really had taken her under his wing, then. Rey smiled, too, but her eyes were on him, all soft and warm and _proud_.

“I’ve got him, Chewie,” she said. “I’m bringing him home.”

There was a brief silence on the other end, and then— **“Dropping out of hyperspace in two minutes. We’ll rendezvous on this moon, if you can make the jump.”**

He rumbled off another string of coordinates, which Ben punched into the computer. He pumped the lever and the escape pod leaped into hyperspace. Rey breathed an audible sigh of relief.

“We’ll be with you in just a minute, Chewie. Stand by.” She clicked off the device and unbuckled herself. Ben kept his eyes on the computer. He knew she was coming closer and his skin prickled, wondering what she would do or say.

“Was it hard?” she asked, very softly.

He frowned, startled by the question. “Was what hard?”

“Killing him. Snoke, I mean.”

Ben thought a moment, thinking back over the years—his whole life, really—and the way Snoke’s voice had filled his head nearly every moment of every day. In the quiet of the escape pod, where the only sounds came from the engines and their own breathing, he was now acutely aware that that voice was gone. Only his own thoughts ran through his mind now. They were a little awkward, yes, but they were also much faster and, to his surprise, far sharper. They were more _him_ and _his_ than they’d ever been since that horrible night with Luke. 

Had the Dark Side held a dampening power over him all this time? Snoke always said the Darkness would make him stronger, but…

 _But Snoke lied. He lied about_ everything _. About Mom and Dad, about Luke, about what I’m capable of…about Rey._

_And I bought the lies—every single one. I bought them, fed them, acted on them._

“No,” he said, adjusting the controls. “It wasn’t hard. Not like—like—”

“Your father?” she whispered.

He looked at her sharply, but Rey didn’t even flinch. Ben’s throat tightened, her face swimming in his vision.

“I’m sorry,” he choked. “I’m so, _so_ sorry…”

Rey touched his arm. Ben pulled in a shuddering breath; he couldn’t afford to cry, not with so many things to think about right now. He turned his face away from her and blinked hard, focusing his attention on the instrument panel.

“Nearly there,” he muttered, clearing his throat roughly. “There’s some charges under that seat. We’ll make sure the pod self-destructs once we get aboard the _Falcon_.”

“All right,” Rey said softly. “But Ben?”

He glanced at her again as she let her hand slide down to touch his, running her thumb along his knuckles. He shuddered at the compassion and the trust conveyed in that gesture…not to mention the intimacy.

“The Force brought us together for a reason,” she whispered. “I’m not leaving you until I find out why.”

He let out a weak, snorting laugh. “Even if your Resistance friends try to rip me apart, limb by limb?”

“They won’t do that,” she insisted—though he noticed some uncertainty lacing her voice. “And even if they wanted to, I wouldn’t let them, and neither would your mother. I said I’d help you, and I meant it. And before I left…well, before I left the place where Luke is—”

“You still won’t tell me?” he asked, trying to tease. “At this point you’d just be satisfying my curiosity.”

Rey sighed, smirked. “All right. Ach-To.”

“Ach-To.” He repeated it softly, rolling the strange name on his tongue. “Huh. Where _is_ that?”

She laughed. “In the Outer Regions. It’s the most beautiful place I’ve ever seen, and so quiet—except when you barge into my meditation time.”

“Sorry.”

She giggled again—a beautiful sound. He’d give a lot to hear that sound on a regular basis.

“Anyway,” she went on, “before I left, I…I met someone. A ghost.”

His eyes widened. Rey hurtled on, blushing a little as if she was afraid he might think she’d gone crazy.

“He said his name was Obi-Wan Kenobi—”

“Wait. You saw _him_?”

She nodded, wide-eyed. “He said I was right to try and rescue you—but that if you did come with me, it wouldn’t be easy. For either of us.” Rey swallowed, still running her thumb over his hand. “Despair, anger…and fear. He said they’ve haunted you all your life, and you won’t be free of them right away.”

“No,” he murmured, looking away. “I don’t think I will.”

“Then let me _help_ you get free,” she pleaded, grabbing his hand with both of her own. “He said there were three keys: hope, forgiveness, and love. We can fight the Darkness with those three weapons, Ben. We _have_ to! You’re the Resistance’s last hope—”

“No,” he said again, letting go of the controls—they had a little time before they reached the moon, he could afford it—and taking her by the shoulders. “No, Rey. _You_ are the Resistance’s last hope. You really think I would’ve turned back to the Light if you hadn’t pointed the way these past six weeks? You think I could’ve found the strength to kill Snoke if you hadn’t given me a reason to? Listen to me. If I’m ever able to atone for what I’ve done, if I ever find it in me to forgive myself, it’ll only be because of _you_.”

Rey blinked, her lips parting. Clearly, the possibility that _she_ might matter far more to the Galaxy than he did had never crossed her mind. He reached up, deftly tucking her disheveled hair behind her ear.

“You still think you’re nothing?” he murmured, running his thumb over a blooming bruise on her forehead from where Snoke had dropped her from that terrible height. “You’re not, Rey. Not to the Galaxy…and certainly not to me.”

Rey’s color heightened, but this time there was no embarrassment in her hazel eyes. She looked so unabashedly _happy_ , he wanted to take her face in his hands and kiss her all over again—but the blare of the computer let him know they were approaching the rendezvous point. He quickly took his hands from her shoulders and turned to his instruments.

“Dropping out of hyperspace in three…two…one…”

He pulled the lever and the streaking stars gave way to blackness on one side, a grey moon on the other.

* * *

The moon’s atmosphere was thin enough to require respiratory masks for the brief scramble across from the escape pod to the waiting _Falcon._ Rey clutched her mask to her face, watching and waiting from a safe distance while Ben activated the self-destruct. As soon as he sprang towards her, she thrust a thumbs-up at the Wookiee watching from the _Falcon’_ s cockpit. He sent her a thumbs-up in return and the _Falcon_ ’s bay opened wide.

Rey and Ben dashed up the ramp before it could fully extend, not wanting to waste a single moment on the moon. Her thoughts were full of the beleaguered Resistance fleet now. Strangely enough, she could sense his thoughts were turning in the same direction as well. _Can we read each other’s minds now?_ She peered at him as he tore his breathing mask off his face; he caught her staring and frowned slightly.

_“Uncle Luke never taught you how to keep from broadcasting your thoughts?”_

She almost gasped—his voice was _definitely_ in her head—but long, heavy footsteps behind her kept her from demanding an explanation. She whirled. Chewie loomed over them both, his blue eyes landing on her first, then locking in a hard, unblinking stare on Ben.

R2-D2, proud of his part in calculating distance and speed, chirped a happy, oblivious greeting. Rey offered him a weak smile before looking back up at the Wookiee, who hadn’t moved a muscle. Neither had Ben, who stared up at him through his lashes, looking for all the world like a whipped dog. 

“Chewie,” Rey said slowly, “we need to—”

With a thunderous roar of fury and heartache, Chewie closed the distance between him and the young man and backhanded Ben across the face. The blow would’ve been bad enough coming from another human, but from a seven-foot-tall, ridiculously strong Wookiee, it was staggering. Rey screamed and R2 wailed in fright as Ben reeled, losing his balance and crashing to the floor.

“Chewie, no!” Rey screamed.

He ignored her. Ben coughed, blood trickling from his lip, unable to resist as Chewie grabbed his arm and yanked him upright. Rey closed her hand over her saber hilt, fully prepared to at least frighten the Wookiee into thinking straight—but then she froze, comprehension rooting her in place.

Because the moment Ben was on his feet, Chewie crushed him to his chest in the tightest hug she had ever witnessed. She could barely see Ben’s face through the long, golden fur, but she saw enough to know he’d squeezed his eyes shut—and heard enough to know that that hard, short grunt was a muffled sob. 

_Cry, Ben_ , Rey thought, tears stinging her own eyes. _Please, let yourself cry._

“I’m sorry,” he groaned, hiding his face in Chewie’s chest. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry…”

Chewie moaned, dipping his great head and laying a hand over Ben’s black hair. **“So am I. So am I.”**

For several moments no other sound filled the room except Ben’s heavy breathing. By the time he finally lifted his head a great purple bruise bloomed on the same cheek as his scar, his lip was split, and his eyes were bleary with tears. But there was a new, limber looseness in his broad shoulders that hadn’t been there before as Chewie pushed him back a few inches. Ben looked up at him, trying to smile and not quite managing it.

 **“You got big,”** Chewie said, delivering a gentle punch to Ben’s shoulder. **“Grow into your ears yet?”**

At that, Ben actually let out a breathless chuckle. “Not yet.”

 **“Hmmph.”** The sound was dismissive, but there was little hiding the approval in Chewie’s blue eyes. He turned to Rey. **“You said the Resistance was under attack.”**

Rey nodded vigorously. “They’re being pursued by the _Supremacy_ to a nearby planet—”

“Crait,” Ben offered.

“Ben was able to call off the attack, but only temporarily,” Rey added. “We’ve got to help them, Chewie. Even if all we can do is help them with their evacuation—”

 **“We’ll do more than that.”** Chewie turned to Ben again. **“You, get out of those clothes. Girl-Cub, cockpit.”**

Ben looked down at himself. “I don’t have any—”

 **“Storage closet.”** Chewie leveled a long, knowing look down at him. **“And you know _exactly_ where it is.”**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chewbacca is a grumpy, long-suffering uncle who just wants his two cubs to make it home safe and sound. After all, he wouldn't have helped Rey get to the Supremacy if he wasn't also willing to risk everything for Ben, right? We stan one (1) Protective Uncle Chewie.


	8. The Battle of Crait

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Got a longer chapter for y'all today! Enjoy the action (with a bit of fluff thrown in because...well, why not?) ;-)

_Into your eyes_

_Hopeless and taken_

_We stole our new lives_

_In defense of our dreams_

_—Thirty Seconds to Mars, “Kings and Queens”_

General Armitage Hux was not the kind of man to mourn anyone or anything—but he was quite capable of speechless, horrified astonishment.

He’d intended to confront Snoke about that nonsensical order to cease fire upon the Resistance fleet. He’d had it on good authority that Leia Organa herself was on the _Raddus_ , along with Amildyn Holdo. The two firebrands of the Resistance had to be snuffed out at once. The First Order was on the verge of victory!

But then Ren had delivered Snoke’s order, and Hux had felt madness tug and rip at the edges of his brain. None of it made any sense—and so, after dithering over what to do for a few minutes, he’d stormed to the Throne Room himself. 

As soon as he’d entered and took in the scene before him, however, his heart nearly stopped. The place was a fire hazard, first of all (though when the _Raddus_ shot through the _Supremacy_ a few minutes later, _that_ became the least of his concerns). Secondly and more disastrously, the room was full of dead, mangled bodies. The Praetorian Guards were all dead, with gaping, sizzling holes marring their blood-red armor. At the sight of Snoke—neatly cut in two, the sliced ends cauterized—Hux had to stifle a gag.

“Security footage,” he gasped to the subordinate who’d followed on his heels. “Get the security footage— _now!”_

The young officer had scrambled to obey. Within minutes, Hux knew the whole, sordid story.

The Scavenger from Starkiller Base hadn’t done this alone. Ren had killed Snoke himself with his mystical powers and helped _her_ defeat the Guards. And if that wasn’t bad enough, once the smoke cleared and Ren delivered those stupid fake orders, he’d taken the Girl in his arms and _kissed her!_

Hux should’ve known. Ren had been a distracted, broody jumble of emotions ever since Starkiller Base. Hux did not pride himself on his emotional intuition, but even a blind man should’ve seen that Ren wasn’t simply tormented by the memory of his patricide. The man had been _pining_ over that scrawny little wench. It was disgusting.

And yet Hux couldn’t help feeling a strong sense of satisfaction. After all this long time, he finally had Kylo Ren right where he wanted him: branded as a traitor, an enemy of the First Order. He’d never fully shed his true identity, had he? All this time Ren had thought himself _so_ superior…and yet he had never really stopped being His Royal Highness Ben Organa-Solo, Prince of New Alderaan and Naboo, Last of the Skywalkers.

 _Rebel scum_. Hux’s mouth curled in a half-smile, half-grimace as his ship—once Kylo Ren’s—descended upon the old abandoned salt mines of the planet Crait. As the new Supreme Leader of the First Order, he had a great deal to do…and the annihilation of Ben Solo’s mother was at the top of the list.

It would be the only appropriate retribution for the assassination of Snoke.

* * *

It was surreal, hurrying down the _Falcon_ ’s cramped and narrow corridors to the storage closet. Ben ran his hand along the dull metal walls with each stride. During those long, wearisome years under his uncle’s tutelage, he’d learned he had a not-unheard-of but still rare and noteworthy ability: he could glimpse the history of an object (and sometimes its future) by touch.

He knew the _Falcon_ ’s history, of course, but he hadn’t dwelt on it with anything other than a clinical eye in a very long time. He was smothered by an onslaught of emotions and memories as his fingertips ran along instrument panels, faded markers, and doorframes. Without Snoke’s voice coloring every mental image with bitter, disparaging, callous-forming commentary, he could envision things so much more clearly.

_Scenes from the years before his birth…Han Solo and Princess Leia desperately fleeing Hoth…evading Imperial fighters through an asteroid field…unwittingly taking refuge in the belly of a monster…stealing a kiss in a service chamber…_

_Fast forward, rushing down through time…and there he is, little Ben, racing down one end of the corridor to the next, timing himself to see how fast he could run. Gripping a piece of chalk in his chubby hand, scrawling birds and butterflies on the clanging metal floors. His mother’s laughter as she teased his father about loving the_ Falcon _more than he loved_ her _. His father teasing her right back before hoisting Ben under his arm and rubbing playful knuckles into the little boy’s dark curls…_

Ben’s vision blurred with hot tears. He was glad he’d reached the storage closet; he shut himself inside, not even minding that his tall, wide figure barely fit in the cramped space. The closeness was reassuring…almost like a warm blanket. Trying to catch his breath, he started yanking open the drawers and cupboards, looking for extra clothes.

When he found them, however, he had to clench his teeth and press his lips tightly together to keep himself from crumbling altogether. They were Dad’s, of course. He’d only been gone a month and a half; there’d probably been no time to clear out his things. Not that Chewie would’ve wanted to or even cared, anyway.

Thankfully, they weren’t all _distinctly_ Han Solo: there was no weathered old jacket, and while all the trousers were the same, the shirts had a little variety. Thankfully, too, Ben had only just squeaked by his father’s own considerable height. After taking them all to the nearby fresher he discovered that the brown trousers fit fairly well. The grey shirt was a bit snug, but a dark blue canvas jacket easily concealed that solitary flaw.

When he looked at himself in the mirror, his reflection startled him. It was still his face, of course—scarred, bruised, and freckled—but there was something different about it now. The dark brown eyes gazing back at him were quiet and calm, the full lips no longer set in a grim, tense line. He let out a long, steadying breath.

“Kylo Ren is dead,” he said aloud, looking his reflection dead in the eye. He tilted his head back, squaring his shoulders. “Ben Solo is alive.”

_Alive, yes—but guiltless? No…never guiltless. The Resistance will never take you back. Your mother will never take you back. You killed—_

Ben gritted his teeth. The voice in his head had been his own—or, at least, it was the memory of the cold, toneless voice he’d adopted for far too long. With an effort he silenced it. Yes, he bore the weight of Kylo Ren’s crimes; yes, one day he’d have to answer for them. But Snoke had lied when he warned him that Leia Organa would never take her wayward son back. The Light had promised otherwise.

_One step at a time. Save the people fleeing to Crait first…and then just do the next right thing._

He stepped out of the fresher and headed back down the corridors, stronger and lighter still. He felt the lurch when the _Falcon_ dropped out of hyperspace and entered the cockpit just as it streaked through Crait’s atmosphere.

Rey, seated in the pilot’s chair, turned for just as a split second as he walked in. In that short amount of time her expression registered surprise, then great approval as she took in his changed appearance, then the fierce determination of a girl about to do battle.

“We’ve tracked several hundred life forms in one of the mines,” she said, turning back to her instruments, “but the First Order’s gotten here before us. Who’s leading them now?”

“Hux,” Ben said, peering at the snow-white landscape beneath them. First Order transports, AT-ATs, and even his old ship were all stationed in front of the rusting eyesore of a mine.Rey threw a lever with all her might; the _Falcon_ groaned and shot forward, even faster than before.

“I got the distinct impression he didn’t like _you_ at all,” she deadpanned.

Ben smiled wryly. “Let’s just say the feeling is mutual.”

In the co-pilot’s seat, Chewie chortled—then sat up, pointing. **“Look! The mine is opening!”**

Ben leaned forward between the two seats just in time to glimpse half a dozen fragile-looking skim speeders shooting out of the mine. It took him a moment to realize where they were headed: straight for the battering ram cannon.

“They’re trying to take that thing out,” he said, pointing at it.

“Can they?” Rey asked, following his finger. “Can they do it?”

“Not with those buckets of bolts.”

Chewie grunted. **“You always were a bucket of sunshine, Cub.”**

Ben let the teasing comment slide. He was sensing a new resolve in Rey, and he didn’t have time to think up an equally snarky retort. She sprang out of the seat and turned to him.

“You fly,” she ordered. “I’ll man the gunnery.”

“What? No, wait—”

But Rey looked straight up at him, her eyes flashing as if the vast difference in their height didn’t matter one bit. “Do you know how to fly this thing?”

“Yes, but—”

“Then _do it_ , Ben. I’ll provide cover for those speeders. You and Chewie keep the First Order distracted. They hate this ship—they’ll be so furious at the sight of it, they won’t know who to attack first.” The defiance in her eyes softened. “I believe in you. And I’ll see you in a bit.”

She gave his hand one fierce, quick squeeze, then ran out of the cockpit. Ben hesitated only a second longer. The words _“I believe in you”_ rang through his head as he threw himself into the pilot’s seat for the first time since he was a boy and his dad taught him—with a lot of laughter and half-terrified swearing—how to fly the _Millennium Falcon_.

 **“For what it’s worth,”** Chewie said quietly, **“she’s not the only one who believes in you _.”_**

Ben glanced at the Wookiee and smiled faintly. “Thanks, Uncle Chewie.”

Then he pumped a lever and gripped the control columns with as much certainty as if he were piloting his own TIE.

* * *

Down on the planet, Finn panicked as the TIE fighters, determined to prevent the Resistance from attacking the battering cannon, bore down on Rose Tico’s fragile little speeder. _No no no…not Rose…please, not Rose!_

“I can’t lose ‘em!” Rose cried, grief in her voice as she realized what was about to happen.

For one terrible moment—probably the worst moment in his entire life—worse, even, than when Kylo Ren threw Rey into a tree, because at least then Finn could _do_ something—despair flooded Finn’s mind. Rose, his friend (maybe more than a friend?) ever since he woke up in the medbay on D’Qar, was about to die.

And there was nothing he could do to stop it.

 _BOOM!_ The explosion made him jump in the seat of his own rattling speeder; he whirled, but rather than witnessing the annihilation of Rose’s vehicle, he saw the TIE shatter and scatter across the snowy salt…

And streaking through the debris, the unmistakable, barnacle-like hulk of the _Millennium Falcon._

Finn stared open-mouthed, then let out a bellowing whoop.

“It’s the _Falcon!”_ he screamed. “ _REY’S BACK_!”

“Keep your eye on the target, Finn!” Poe Dameron shouted over the commlink. “Rose, are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” Rose called back, a relieved tremor in her voice. Her speeder pulled up alongside Finn, close enough for her to shoot him a look of nervous joy. He grinned back and gave her a thumbs-up.

Rey was back—and with any luck, she’d brought Luke Skywalker with her.

There was hope for the Resistance yet.

* * *

“Ben, pull off from the battle!” Rey shouted. “Draw them away from the speeders!”

“Already on it, Sweetheart!” he shouted back.

Rey blinked, drawing an incredulous smile. _Sweetheart?_ She allowed herself a quick little shrug and braced herself in the weighted, tilting gunnery seat, gripping her controls like her very life depended on it.

It probably _did_ , come to think of it. Ben and Chewie steered the _Falcon_ through a dangerously sharp curve, straight into the midst of the TIE fighters. Sure enough, the distracted TIEs shot after them, leaving the vulnerable speeders to continue their mad dash towards the battering cannon.

But when Rey realized they were headed straight for a narrow, salt-red ravine, her mouth went dry.

 **“Hold on, Girl-Cub!”** Chewie roared.

He was almost too late with the warning. Ben flipped the _Falcon_ so that she flew sideways, barely clearing the crimson walls of the ravine. Rey screamed in alarm as the gun rattled and sparked against stone and salt before striking the gunnery window. A deep crack split the glass.

“BEN!” Rey screamed, pushing herself back in the seat as far as she could away from that terrifying crack.

* * *

Ben heard Rey scream in the gunnery, but he ignored her—not because he was indifferent but because he dared not let even her cries dislodge his concentration. He leaned forward in his seat, knuckles whitening as he held the _Falcon’_ s shuddering controls steady.

For an instant, he considered summoning the fast, ferocious strength of the Dark Side. It would get the job done…help him concentrate…or rather, it would strip away the need for concentration and replace it with instant gratification. _Success. Triumph. Victory…_

 _“No!”_ The sudden, youthful voice in his head was unknown to him, but it resounded with a warmth and strength he never knew he craved. _“Don’t buy that lie! The Dark offers plenty but it takes even more as payment. Draw on the Light, Ben. You have more of it in you than you know.”_

Another ghost, peering over his shoulder? It wasn’t his dad, yet there was a familiarity about it that made the hair at the back of his neck stand on end. 

_“Do what you have to do, Ben,”_ the voice added. _“You have more than enough strength to do it.”_

Ben leaned forward and narrowed his eyes, arms quivering from the effort of holding the _Falcon_ steady…and began to murmur an ancient mantra he hadn’t uttered in a long, long time.

“I am one with the Force, and the Force is with me. I am one with the Force…and the Force…is with me…”

Chewie glanced at him sidelong, but Ben kept his eyes locked on that sliver of light at the end of the ravine. The _Falcon_ banged and crashed and shook—

And broke free into the cloudless blue sky while the TIEs behind it, unable to readjust, slammed chaotically into the boulders on the other side of the ravine. Ben slumped back into his seat with a gasp. Chewie roared with triumph and thumped a heavy hand atop his head.

 **“THAT IS SOME _FINE_ PILOTING!” **the Wookiee bellowed, ruffling Ben’s hair so roughly, it hurt.

Ben laughed shakily, spinning in his seat as he heard light, running footsteps behind him. Rey burst into the cockpit, her face aglow and her eyes a little wild with adrenaline.

“Thought I might die for a second back there,” she teased, jabbing a thumb over her shoulder. “Now I know how Finn felt when he and I got off Jakku.”

“Finn.” Ben repeated the name; she’d mentioned her friend a few times during their connections and hadn’t missed the fondness that crept into her voice every time she did. Rey smiled.

“Remind me later, and I’ll tell you the story.” She moved closer, laying a hand on his shoulder as she leaned forward and peered through the windows. When she held out her other palm, he saw she held a blinking blue device.

“Your mother gave me this when we left D’Qar,” she explained. “It’s a beacon—she’s got one just like it.”

Chewie consulted an instrument panel Ben hadn’t paid much attention to. **“And here it is…underground.”**

“If the beacon's right beneath us, there’s gotta be some way we can get to them,” Rey said. “Keep scanning for life forms.”

“And if we find them,” Ben said, steering the _Falcon_ in the direction the scanner indicated, “what then?”

Rey pressed her lips together. “We’ll get them off this planet. Who knows what shape those little transports are in, after everything they’ve been through?”

Ben said nothing, but his thoughts were beginning to spin out of control. The survivors of the Resistance…here? On this ship? With him? He had no right to be afraid, and yet…in a confined space, with people who’d suffered horribly because of _him_ …

Rey’s hand, still on his shoulder, moved closer to his spine. Hesitantly, as if she wasn’t sure it would work, he heard her voice in his head.

_“Don’t worry. I’ll think of something. I won’t let anyone hurt you.”_

She sensed his thoughts, then…just as he could sense hers. He glanced up at her. She looked back at him, and a small, shy smile tugged the corners of her mouth. A spark of mischief lit him up.

 _“You didn’t do such a great job protecting me from Chewie,”_ he shot back.

Rey’s eyes widened, and that little smile turned into a playful smirk. _“I was still thrown off my game after that kiss. I’m better prepared now for anything.”_

_“Remind me never to kiss you before stressful engagements, then.”_

Rey blushed, his mind throbbing with her startled, giddy curiosity: _Does that mean he’ll kiss me again?_ In spite of everything that had transpired—and everything that he feared was _about_ to transpire—he grinned and threw another lever.

_“If you don’t want your mind to be an open book, you really need to learn to shield your thoughts. But yes…I’ll kiss you again if you want me to.”_

Chewie, thankfully, remained oblivious to the silent conversation taking place beside him. Otherwise he would’ve noticed Rey’s cheeks had turned positively crimson.

* * *

The beacon finally led them to a gulley two miles south of the mine. Ben and Chewie brought the _Falcon_ to a swift if bumping landing at the top of the gulley. Their view of the First Order forces was now blocked, but Rey’s heightened sensitivity to her surroundings informed her that some pivotal confrontation was taking place. Nor could she block out the thunder of concentrated plasma blasts assaulting her eardrums the moment Chewie lowered the boarding ramp.

Ben was right behind her, but before she could run down the ramp he grabbed her hand. Rey turned back, startled by the unusual blend of grim fear and stubborn resolve in his face.

“Let me help you,” he said, his voice tight and controlled. “They may have wounded. They may have—”

“No,” she whispered, remembering the anxiety in his thoughts a few moments ago. “Stay here. In fact, find someplace to hide. Surely there’s a nook or cranny somewhere on a smuggler’s freighter where you can go unnoticed.”

Ben scowled. “I’m not going to hide like a frightened rat, Rey. I’d rather take whatever they throw at me—”

“And what good will that do anyone?” Rey shot back. “I don’t want to have to explain what happened on the _Supremacy_ to anyone in the middle of an evacuation—an evacuation that won’t be successful if the First Order tracks us here!”

Ben said nothing, but at that last phrase he blinked. Hard. Almost as if he’d just realized something.

“Rey—“

“Stay here,” she said again. “And please… _hide_. For me, if for nothing else.”

He nodded distractedly. Rey squeezed his hand and ran down the ramp, refusing herself a backward glance. If she turned before she got to the ground and saw him still standing there, watching her with those deep, dark, worried eyes of his, it would tear her to pieces.

 _S_ he jumped off the ramp and clambered down the rough path, following the beacon’s frantic beeping to…a pile of rocks. Her heart pounded. Her friends were on the other side—she was sure of it. Not only did the beacon promise it, but the Force throbbed with their terror and desperation. Frantically, Rey searched for an opening she couldn’t see, a chink in the rocks…and found none.

 _“It’s not about lifting rocks,”_ Luke Skywalker had said during her first lesson on Ach-To. And yet it appeared in this particular moment that it was all about…

“Lifting rocks,” Rey whispered. Finally, she allowed herself one quick glance up at the _Falcon._ Ben had disappeared from the top of the boarding ramp. Relieved, she turned back towards the barrier.

She closed her eyes. Focused. Lifted her hand…

And summoned to the forefront of her mind every lesson Luke Skywalker had blessed her with…every kind instruction he’d given her in spite of his usual curmudgeonly ways. She called upon her keen awareness of the Something that had always been inside her and now lived in blazing glory…Something that had flared in joyful welcome the moment she and Ben Solo stood back-to-back in Snoke’s Throne Room.

Her tense, slender form relaxed, power flowing through her extended arm. She opened her eyes and gasped.

The mound of rocks floated loose and free around her. On the other side of the gulley, a cluster of wide-eyed and awestruck people crowded the opening—and standing right at their forefront was—

 _Finn._ A smile exploded on Rey’s face. With a flick of her wrist she sent the rocks safely flying, left to right. The Resistance fighters sprang forward, but Finn made a beeline for her and she for him. They crashed into each other, arms wrapping tightly. Rey closed her eyes in sheer joy.

“Rey,” Finn gasped, nearly crushing her. “Oh Rey, I thought I’d never see you again…”

She laughed tearfully and pushed him back a few inches. “I told you we would, but you weren’t exactly in a position to hear! Are you okay? Is your back—”

“Healed,” he said. “Bit scarred, but hey, I’ll have stories to tell my kids one day.”

A slow, halting movement behind him caught Rey’s eye; she glanced over his shoulder and found herself looking straight at Leia Organa. To Rey’s horror, the woman looked frail—nothing like the strong (if sad) general she’d left behind on D’Qar. There was a weighty question in her eyes, but her thoughts were shielded; Rey couldn’t tell what the question was.

“I didn’t bring Luke,” she said, hoping that was the answer Leia was looking for. “He wouldn’t—”

“He’s out there,” Leia murmured. “He’s facing down the First Order.”

Rey’s mouth fell open. _Luke…He actually came?! But—_

“He’s distracting them long enough for us to get away,” Finn said urgently. “Which is why we’ve gotta go, _now_.”

Rey nodded shakily. “Of course. Everyone, into the _Falcon_!”

The fighters scrambled up the other side of the gulley, moving as fast and quietly as they could. A young, ridiculously handsome man with a head of unruly dark curls—Poe Dameron, Rey remembered from her brief time on base—supported Leia on one side. Rey rushed to help him while Finn, she noticed out of the corner of her eye, ran back to help the medics carry an unconscious girl on a stretcher.

“I’m fine, I’m fine,” Leia said unconvincingly.

“No, you’re not,” snapped the young commander. “You let us help you, General. It’s about time someone did.” He paused, glanced at Rey, and behind his open admiration for what he’d just seen her do, she saw worry.

Deep, deep worry.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I couldn't help throwing in a reference to "Ben Solo & the Bug Hunters" during that first scene aboard the Falcon. I will never get over my "sweet but chaotic" Baby Ben.


	9. Reconciliation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So sorry for the delay in sharing a new chapter! I meant to post this one on Wednesday, but between a new niece's birth and a sick grandmother, my time (and brain cells) have been tied up. Anyhooz, I really hope y'all enjoy reading this one as much as I enjoyed writing it :)

_There are moments that the words don’t reach_

_There’s a grace too powerful to name_

_We push away what we can never understand_

_We push away the unimaginable…_

_Forgiveness, can you imagine?_

_Forgiveness, can you imagine?_

_—Hamilton, “It’s Quiet Uptown”_

Armitage Hux wasn’t taking any chances. This was the very thing Snoke had spent so much time and effort to prevent: the return of Luke Skywalker. And yet here the aged Jedi was, facing down the First Order in front of a godforsaken salt mine, the ragtag survivors of the Resistance trapped behind him.

Did he really think he could protect them? With nothing but a laser-sword?

Hux strode out of his ship—he’d claimed it as his own now that Kylo Ren had no right to it—and marched towards the solitary figure. The full, concentrated power of all his AT-ATs didn’t seem to have made much impression on Skywalker. The Jedi had simply brushed off his Jedi robes when the dust cleared, which had infuriated Hux even more than the sight of him still alive.

_These cursed Skywalkers. They don’t know when to give up._

Hux stopped about three yards from the Jedi. He whipped a gleaming black pistol out of his belt and aimed it at Skywalker. His arm did not shake. His blue-green eyes narrowed.

“I’ve waited a long time for this moment, Luke Skywalker,” he snarled. “I just never thought I’d be the one with the privilege of striking you down.”

* * *

Luke Skywalker quirked an eyebrow at the young general before him. He knew exactly who Armitage Hux was; the general’s father had been a prominent figure in the Empire’s desperate, unsuccessful fight to crush the New Republic after the Battle of Endor.

A prominent figure…as well as an insane, sadistic one.

“You’ve waited a long time, huh?” Luke called out, contempt for the First Order sidling alongside his pity for this young man. “Can’t say the feeling’s mutual.”

“Oh, I’m _sure_ it isn’t,” Hux snarled. “You’re a creature of sentiment, Skywalker. It’s your greatest weakness—your entire _family_ ’s weakness. But I’m no idiot, either. I _know_ it’s your preferred weapon of choice.”

Luke let his eyebrow climb higher, a little puzzled. “Oh, really?”

Hux took a step closer, his raised arm and that pistol never wavering. “I know all the old stories. My father made _sure_ I knew them.”

“Maybe you should tell me his version, then. Otherwise you’re leaving me a bit in the dark.”

Hux’s pale, candle-wax complexion reddened. Luke met his increasingly stormy gaze without blinking. He had a job to do here. He had to stall the First Order, give Leia and her people enough time to get out of that mine…although where they would go and how they’d access their battered ships, he wasn’t quite sure. All he knew was that somehow, some way, the Resistance _would_ escape.

He knew it as surely as he knew he would not survive this day.

“My father told me,” Hux said, his voice low and dangerously calm, “that you boarded Death Star Two and won your father—Darth Vader _himself_ —over with sentiment. If you hadn’tappealed to his conscience, he never would’ve killed the Emperor. He never would’ve brought the Empire to its knees…and he never would’ve spared your life or your sister’s. There would’ve been no New Republic, no Senate, no Resistance…”

“Sounds like a rosy alternate future,” Luke deadpanned.

“It would’ve been a future of order, discipline, and prosperity.” Hux spoke so coolly, so quietly, it was more unnerving than the pistol aimed at the spot between Luke’s eyes. “And so my father always warned not just me, but the rest of his followers, ‘ _This_ is what happens when you let your heart rule your head. Beware the Skywalkers with their passion, and their sentiment, and their _hope_ —because they’re more dangerous than all the Star Destroyers and Imperial Legions _combined_.’ ”

“I’m flattered,” Luke said, “but I’m not sure how that applies to the situation you and I find ourselves in right now.”

 _Come on, Leia_ , he thought even as the nonchalant words tumbled out of his mouth. _Let me know you’re safe._

Hux, oblivious to the silent plea, suddenly smirked. He was within a yard of Luke now. Too close.

“You think you’ve dealt another one of your blows, don’t you?” he murmured. “One of your sentimental victories.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking abou—”

“ _STOP WITH THE PREVARICATION!”_ Hux exploded, all pretense of calm shattering with bulging veins and eyes and a roaring, screaming voice. “You know exactly what I’m talking about! You sent that scrawny, _pathetic_ little Scavenger to the _Supremacy_ —you _trained_ her to attack Kylo Ren with sentiment in the same exact way you attacked Darth Vader—and because of _them_ , Snoke is dead! You think you’ve pulled off another Battle of Endor scenario, Skywalker—but you _won’t!_ The Resistance is dead, the war is over…and when I kill you, I will have killed the last Jedi!”

For the first time since he found himself envisioning the planet Crait, Luke Skywalker was speechless. He stared at Hux, unsure whether to burst out laughing…or weep.

Yoda was right, then. When his old Master appeared to him in front of the burning Jedi tree back on Ach-To, Yoda had delivered a much-needed scolding—but also an enigmatic promise. Luke hadn’t understood it then, but now it came back to him, firm and calm:

 _“Lost Ben Solo, you did…as we lost Anakin Skywalker._ His _fate, though, hmm? Not hopeless. Believed in him, you did…as Rey believes in young Solo.”_

Luke had absorbed Yoda’s words with morose skepticism, but now… _but now_ …something stirred in him he hadn’t felt in many, many years. Something warm and feather-light, like a pure-white bird flying straight into the sun. 

“Ben Solo…and little Rey from Nowhere… _killed Snoke_?” he asked slowly. “Together?”

Hux blinked. Luke let out a breath as if he’d been punched in a stomach; a smile broke out on his aging face, and before he knew it, he’d actually laughed out loud.

_Ben and Rey killed Snoke. She brought him back. She won him over._

Hux blinked, startled by the sound of Luke Skywalker’s laughter. Luke quickly composed himself, blinking away tears that weren’t purely from laughter, and pulled in a deep breath. Strength flowed through him now, strength he hadn’t had a moment ago…because a moment ago, he’d had no hope. Now it coursed through his veins, clearing his head and bringing a dignity and resolve to his dusty, unassuming appearance.

_Ben came back. Ben came back. Ben came back…_

“Amazing,” he said aloud. “Every word of what you just said was wrong. The Rebellion is reborn today. The war is just beginning. And I will _not_ be the last Jedi.”

“Don’t be so sure, old man,” Hux said, activating his pistol with a swipe of his thumb. “I’ll destroy Ben Solo for what he did, _and_ his little Scavenger…and I’ll slice your sister’s throat myself once I get rid of _you_. The Resistance won’t survive those losses, Skywalker. I’ll crush it to death—and I’ll start with you.”

 _“LUKE!”_ Leia’s voice thundered through the connection they’d always had. _“Luke, we’re fine! We’re safe!”_

Relief—and a new burst of courage—washed over Luke. He tipped his head back and held out his arms, his lightsaber gleaming and sizzling in his hand.

“Fine. Fire away. But strike me down, Armitage Hux, and your father’s madness will surely be yours.”

To his great satisfaction, that seemed to be the last straw. Hux’s face contorted in pure rage. With a fiendish scream, he pulled the trigger.

But the blast passed right through Luke’s head without so much as a stirring of his hair. Hux gasped—and now his hand trembled. Luke smiled grimly.

“See you around, General,” he muttered.

And with that, he allowed the Force-projection to fade.

* * *

Ben hadn’t been idle—nor had he done quite what Rey had asked of him. Rather than hiding in the bowels of his father’s ship, he’d rushed to the arsenal. Dad always kept all manner of weapons down here—some of them legal, others most decidedly _not_. Moving fast while Rey scrambled down the ravine and bent nature to her will, he yanked out rifle after modified rifle, not to mention a couple of bowcasters like Chewie’s and a bazooka that even he, strong as he was, struggled to hold upright.

The Resistance would need them. It was the least he could do to help—especially if Rey’s comment about the First Order tracking them down proved true in a way she couldn’t possibly imagine.

 _No, don’t think about that now…think about it later…focus on what you can do NOW._

He ran back and forth as fast as he could, laying the weapons in the lounge and trying not to step on the Porgs that, for some reason, he hadn’t really noticed until now. They seemed to have taken residence in the _Falcon_ and did not at all appreciate the enormous human pounding up and down the corridors.

Every time he passed the _Falcon_ ’s open hatch, he checked on Rey. Her solitary form stood tense and strong before the sloping rock, her hand outstretched and a deep, cracking rumble issuing from the land. When he finally saw the rocks scatter away from the ravine and the fighters clamber out of the cave, he knew he had to stop. Setting down the last two rifles, he fled the lounge and ran down to the cargo bay.

There were plenty of concealed nooks and crannies in here; the _Falcon_ was nothing if not the perfect ship for smuggling. And Ben knew exactly where he wanted to hide himself. Without even having to look for it, he hooked his fingers in a grilled section of the floor and yanked away the steel panel. The cavity beneath was just deep enough for a man of his height. He settled the panel back over his head and sighed in relief as footsteps pounded into the _Falcon_.

“Just in time,” he whispered, raking a hand through his sweat-damp hair.

“Good thing you still know this ship like the back of your hand.”

Ben swore in alarm, whirling…and freezing. It wasn’t Dad; it wasn’t even the owner of the strange, familial voice he’d heard during his reckless flight through the canyon.

Instead, Luke Skywalker stood before him. His uncle.

The man who first taught him how to control his fledgling powers.

The man who would’ve killed him in his sleep.

“What—” Ben blurted, then stopped, glancing in frantic bewilderment up at the hideout’s ceiling and back at Luke. “How did you get in here?!”

Luke smiled faintly. Everything about him seemed faint, weirdly enough.

“I have my ways,” he said, his voice low and tired. “Just heard a funny story from your friend Hux. Seems the First Order’s accusing you and young Rey of nothing less than bloody murder.”

Ben bristled. It was one thing to repent and beg his dad’s forgiveness, fight for his own freedom and protect Rey, fly the _Falcon_ and know he was protecting his mom. It was quite another thing to stand before the man against whom he’d nursed the most murderous grudge in galactic history and face his smug “I-told-you-so’s.” Anger and pain, black as pitch, filled his chest.

“Well, it seems I’ve seen the Light,” Ben growled, “no thanks to you.”

Luke sighed. “No…no thanks to me, at all. I failed you, Ben. I’m sorry.”

Ben suddenly felt as if he had been split in two. One side of him—the remnants of Kylo Ren, he supposed—wanted to lash out with a harsh retort, something along the lines of “I’m _sure_ you are!” But the other side of him, the side that had slowly come back to life ever since he and Rey started talking, the side that had flared awake the moment he glimpsed his dad in his cabin back on the _Supremacy_ … _that_ side jolted at the realization that Luke Skywalker had just said “I’m sorry.”

Ben had uttered those same words enough times today himself, and neither Dad nor Rey had thrown them back in his face. His throat burned and tightened; he clenched his hands, trying to maintain control over his emotions.

“I—” He gulped, frustrated with himself for the tears that blinded him yet again. “I’ve done so much…so many horrible things—”

“I know,” Luke said quietly. “Rey told me about Han.”

Ben gritted his teeth, unable to stop the grief churning through his veins now. Luke stepped closer. Strange, how he just looked so dull…almost as if the sun had bleached any vibrance out of him…

“You’ve made your own choices, Ben. You’ll have to deal with their consequences. But that doesn’t mean I don’t share some of the responsibility.”

Ben shook his head fiercely, his eyes on the floor. “No. I don’t want you to—”

“Be quiet for half a minute, Kid, and let me talk.”

Ben looked up, a little startled by the old, playful term of endearment. Luke smiled wearily.

“The worst thing I could’ve done,” he said, “was to forget what I learned on Death Star Two: that no one is ever truly gone. Even my father—Anakin Skywalker, the mighty Darth Vader—even he was brought back by the goodness and beauty of the Light. Somewhere along the line I forgot that. Or, at least, I didn’t realize that that same hope might be exactly what you, my own sister’s boy, really needed.”

There were those blasted tears again. Ben swallowed hard, exhaling shakily. 

“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I’ve been so angry for so long…”

“Yes, you have. So have I. Just don’t give in to the hubris of believing you’re the only irredeemable person in the history of the galaxy. That’ll only make it worse in the long run.” Luke sighed, his gaze softening. “I can’t stay, Kid.”

Ben jerked his watery eyes up, frowning. “Why not? You’ve come this far, after all this long time. The First Order’s been looking for you— _I’ve_ been looking for you!—and now you’re gonna disappear again just when you can help—”

“Ben.” Luke smiled. “Slow down…and think for a minute. I just told you I’ve been talking to General Hux, and he’s still down there in front of the mine. How do you think I got to the _Falcon_ so fast?”

Ben’s frown deepened…and then it hit him. Startled, horrified, hoping he could prove himself wrong, he stepped closer to his uncle and reached out.

His hand passed straight through the dusty Jedi robes.

“No,” Ben gasped. “No no no…”

“Listen to me, Ben. I won’t last much longer—”

“ _No_ …”

 _“_ —so I need you to remember something.” Luke looked him dead in the eye, daring him to argue. “I will _not_ be the Last Jedi. All right? You and Rey have something incredible and precious, something I don’t even understand but the Force clearly _does_. Don’t squander it, okay? You two can give the Galaxy hope, but not till _you_ are so rooted in the Light, you can withstand the Darkness that’s coming.”

He was speaking fast, but his voice was getting quieter and more breathless. Ben wanted desperately to grab his arm and hold him upright; knowing he couldn’t made him panic. Luke locked his unfocusing eyes on the young man and pulled a weak grin.

“Killed Snoke, did you?” he whispered.

“I did,” Ben choked.

“Why?”

“He would’ve killed Rey, Mom, and the Resistance if I hadn’t.”

Luke nodded, his eyes dimming. “But…but Rey…pretty good motivation, huh?”

In spite of himself, Ben managed a wobbly laugh. “Remember what you used to say about Dad? You’d tell me that if Mom asked him to jump, he’d ask ‘How high?’ ”

Luke chuckled. “You Solo men are all the same.”

Ben smiled through his tears. He knew what was about to happen. It was an elementary lesson, one he’d learned as soon as he became a padawan: you could only extend yourself through the Force to a certain point. The stronger you were, the longer you could manage it…but there would always, _always_ be a price. And astral projection… _that_ one had the steepest cost. Only pouring your own life force into someone else demanded an equally high sacrifice.

“See you around, Kid,” Luke whispered. Then he faded like a mist, leaving Ben alone and utterly bereft.

* * *

Rey felt it: first a sundering, then an empty spot in her consciousness that she never knew Luke Skywalker occupied until it was gone. She froze at the bottom of the _Falcon_ ’s boarding ramp, gasped, and glanced at the aging General-Princess she and Poe Dameron still coaxed along.

That one look told Rey all she needed to know. Leia Organa’s face drained of all color; she paused, lifted her head, and cast her anguished gaze over her shoulder.

“Luke,” she whispered—and said nothing else. Rey noticed the flexing of the General’s jaw and the way she gripped her cane a little tighter; then Leia drew herself up to her full, unimpressive height and gently shrugged the two young people away.

“I can manage from here,” she said quietly. “Thank you, Poe…Rey. You’re much too kind to this haggard old lady.”

“I’d carry you if you’d let me, General,” Poe teased gently.

Leia snorted, then shuffled up the ramp without another word. Poe glanced at Rey. She looked back.

“What’s going on?” he whispered, jabbing a thumb back towards the cave.

Rey blinked, opened her mouth, shut it, and opened it again. “I think…I think Luke is dead.”

Poe’s dark eyes widened, but Rey couldn’t bear to say anything more about it. She ran up the ramp, fighting back tears and a flurry of questions that raced through her head faster than she could keep track of them.

 _Why did he come?_ How _did he come? He sacrificed himself for all of us, distracting the First Order, but…but I thought he didn’t want to come. Where’s Ben? Where are we going to take all these people? How am I supposed to keep them from tearing him to pieces on sight? How am I going to tell Leia?_

_Oh Luke, Luke…what do I do now?!_

Instead of Luke, however, the memory of Obi-Wan’s peaceful old visage came to mind, along with his words: “Hope. Forgiveness. Love.” Those were the keys. Somehow, she had a feeling they were the keys to _everything._

“Let’s go, Chewie!” she cried, racing to the cockpit and throwing herself into the pilot’s seat. “Hyperspace as soon as you can manage it!”

The Wookiee roared and retracted the boarding ramp with the hard push of a button. Within moments the _Millennium Falcon_ shot up into the sky and out of Crait’s atmosphere, jumping to lightspeed before the First Order could stop them.


	10. Moving Forward

_We’re the ones who take the beating_

_Get back up and we’re still breathing_

_We are the ones_

_We’ll take the hit straight to the face_

_And never look the other way_

_We are the ones_

_Still undefeated..._

_—Daughtry, “Undefeated”_

With a little less than a hundred people crammed aboard the _Falcon_ , quarters were tight. But Leia, as always, had a plan. There was another old abandoned base from the days of the Rebellion on a moon called Ajan Kloss; if they could just get there without the First Order tracking them, they could establish a new home in no time flat. And with the _Supremacy_ out of commission thanks to Admiral Holdo’s sacrifice, Finn explained, there’s be no more tracking them through hyperspace.

Rey knew she needed to speak with the General alone, but they were both too tired, heartsore, and anxious. The fighters were exhausted and hungry, too, their quiet, worried voices echoing off the metal walls.

BB-8, at least, was delighted to see her. And C-3PO’s reunion with R2-D2 was quite heartwarming. But Finn, for all he and Rey wanted desperately to catch up, was preoccupied with the wounded girl named Rose—and Poe was constantly bent over maps and data with Leia and Commander D’Acy.

Confident that no one was really paying attention to her, Rey crept away. She followed the gentle tugging in the back of her mind as it led her through the winding corridors and down to the cargo bay. Ben’s presence, which had grown so familiar over the past six weeks, was stronger down here. She pulled the heavy steel door shut behind her and stepped into the center of the room.

“Ben?” she whispered. “Ben, where are you?”

“ _Down here,”_ he whispered back to her mind.

Rey jumped, not expecting the non-verbal response, and rubbed her gooseflesh arms. _“Kriff, you scared me!”_

She sensed his smile, but there was something strained about his consciousness that worried her. She looked down at the floor, puzzled.

 _“Mind being a little more specific about where ‘down here’ actually is?”_ she asked.

_“Take four steps forward and look down. There’s a grilled panel in the floor. I’m looking right at you.”_

Rey hurried forward, dropping to her hands and knees. The panel came up easily enough; she scraped it to the side and peered into the hold beneath, impressed with Han Solo’s ingenuity and eager to reunite with his son.

What she saw, however, made her stomach turn. She scrambled into the hold with a gasp.

“Ben! What in the name of—what are you—?!”

“Shh,” he ordered, hissing through gritted teeth as he drove a sharp blade into his shoulder. He’d shed the canvas jacket and the shirt; both lay draped over his knee. But unlike the time early on in their connections when he’d appeared to her straight out of the ‘fresher, Rey barely noticed. She dropped to her knees beside him and grabbed the shirt, wiping at the blood running down his arm.

“What are you doing?” she cried. “Stop it, Ben—please just stop it—”

“Rey, _be quiet!_ ”

She stared at him, unsure whether to be furious or frightened. Ben drew the knife out of his flesh with a gasp and began probing the wound with his fingers. Even in the dim light she could tell he was white as a sheet. (Not that she knew what white sheets really looked like; she’d only ever heard about them.)

“Here,” he gasped. “Take it.”

Stunned, confused, and horrified, Rey held out a hand…and Ben dropped a small, bloody, metal object into her palm. With an exhausted, relieved sigh he threw his head back against the wall. The knife clattered to the floor.

“All right, that’s it,” Rey snapped, springing to her feet and pressing the shirt against the deep wound. “You take orders from _me_ now. Keep pressure on this—and _you_ hold onto whatever this is—”

“No!” Ben gasped, his eyes flying open. “Throw it into the waste disposal…and eject it… _now_.”

“But—“

“Rey, _please.”_ He swallowed so hard, she saw his throat contract. “It’s a tracker. You’ve got to get rid of it before we leave hyperspace.”

Rey’s mouth fell open. She wasted no more time: she spun on her heel and climbed out of the hold, out of the cargo bay, running as fast as she could to the waste disposal on the other side of the ship.

When she returned, she had a medkit under her arm. Ben sat exactly where she’d left him, his eyes closed, his breathing steady. When he heard her approach, he opened his eyes.

“Did you get rid of it?” he whispered.

“Yes.” Rey couldn’t look at him. She knelt beside him and opened the medkit. “Lucky for you I know how to stitch a wound closed. Had to do it on myself a few times on Jakku. Let me see.”

He pulled back the makeshift bandage, wincing as the fabric tugged at drying blood. Rey shuddered at the sight of the gouged, quickly inflaming skin and reached for the bacta-gel. As she spread it over the wound he pressed his head against the wall yet again, clenching his teeth so hard she worried he’d break his jaw.

“You know you can yell a bit, if you need to,” she said, trying to lighten the mood. “Nobody will hear you down here.”

He snorted, tilting his head towards her. “Easier for you to say. Snoke always taught me…to use my pain…channel it into anger…”

“Well, now that he’s not whispering that nonsense in your ear anymore, maybe you can just enjoy a natural human response for once.” Rey tugged a suture against a gleaming needle and poised it over the edge of the wound. “Brace yourself.”

Ben closed his eyes—and this time he did grunt and groan. Rey tried to work fast and gentle, but not even the pain-killing bacta could get rid of all discomfort. By the time she tied off the suture, his breath came hard and he had little red crescents in his palms where he’d dug his nails into his skin.

“There,” Rey whispered. “All done.” She shut the medkit and rolled the bloody shirt in a ball. “I’ll find you another one of these. Do you want something to eat?”

He shook his head. Rey knew she should leave—knew people would start wondering if she stayed away too long—but she couldn’t. The hollow sadness in his face was too much. It reminded her of the time he’d reminded her that not even Darth Vader had been guilty of patricide.

She got up and moved to his other side. He watched her, eyes hooded and a little wary, as she sat down on the floor beside him. Too bone-weary to be shy, she leaned her head against his good shoulder. He stiffened in surprise, then raised his arm. Rey cuddled closer, resting her head against the side of his chest and draping an arm around his middle.

The closeness was both intoxicating and comforting. Especially when he lifted his hand and ran his fingers through her hair.

“I’ve wanted to touch you like this,” he murmured, “ever since that nightmare of yours woke us both.”

In spite of her exhaustion, warmth flooded Rey’s face. “Nobody’s ever held me like this. Ever.”

“Is it all right?”

“Mm-hmm.”

“Good." He brushed his lips against her hairline. Rey closed her eyes with a shiver.

“My uncle is dead,” he whispered.

Her eyes flew open; she tipped her head back without lifting it from his chest. “How did you know?”

He swallowed again, very hard. “I talked to him…and watched him fade away.”

“Leia says he was projecting himself here. I didn’t even know the Jedi could do that.”

“They never do, unless they absolutely have to.” He wound a strand of her dark hair around his finger. “Does my mother know I’m here?”

“Not yet. I haven’t had a chance to speak with her alone.” She frowned, dared a question. “Why did you have a tracker in your arm?”

He sighed—a long, heavy, bitter sigh. “In the early days of my…apprenticeship…I showed some signs of…reluctance.” He paused. “My first mentor, the original leader of the Knights of Ren, killed one of my Jedi friends. I killed _him_ …and another Jedi. I was so eaten up by it, I…”

His voice trailed off and he tightened his arm around her. “Snoke knew I was dangerously close to fleeing the Dark Side out of sheer terror. So he started ‘training’ me to…to manage the pain. Emotional, physical, mental, it didn’t matter what kind of pain so long as I knew how to master it, no matter how much it hurt.”

“Did he torture you?” Rey whispered.

He nodded. “With dreams…isolation…and a few other brutal instruments.” He gestured with his head at his shoulder. “He put the tracker in to discourage me from running away.”

“And you learned how to ignore the pain?”

Ben snorted softly. “I took a blast from Chewie’s bowcaster and still fought you.”

“Mm-hmm. And I beat you. _Soundly_.”

This time he actually chuckled. “You did.” He leaned close to her again, inhaling deeply. “But what I did to my father, Rey…that pain will never, ever stop. I never learned to conquer that kind of misery. I’m glad now that I didn’t.”

She tilted her head back, meeting his sad, quiet gaze. His eyes roamed all over her face as she reached up, running her thumb along the scar that trailed down his cheek.

“You’re not alone,” she whispered.

He smiled a little, gently drawing her hand from his face and lacing their fingers instead.

“Neither are you,” he whispered back.

Rey smiled. He leaned down and she sat up, meeting him halfway as he kissed her for the second time that day. The kiss in the Throne Room had been heady and exhilarating; this one—and the ones that followed it in slow, leisurely succession—were so much gentler. 

“Rey,” he whispered.

“Hmm?”

“Why is the Force connecting us? In the Throne Room we knew how to coordinate our fighting…we can read each other’s thoughts…” He stroked her bruised cheekbone with his thumb. “Something’s going on. Something we don’t understand…”

“Shh, shh.” She brushed his thick hair back from his face. “We can’t figure it all out today, but we will. I’ve gotta go. But I’ll bring you a new shirt before I go back to the lounge…and I’ll tell your mother, I promise.”

“All right.” He drew her close, kissing her one last time, and Rey felt in it all the tenderness and protection she’d ached for her entire life. It was all she could do to tear herself away. It was as if the Force—or whatever the Force had woven between them—couldn’t bear the separation.

* * *

After bringing Ben some clean clothes, Rey crept back into the _Falcon_ ’s more heavily-populated areas. The fighters were settling down for some much needed sleep, and she had to tiptoe over several sleeping bodies before she found Leia. The aging General-Princess had retreated to one of the very few, truly private spots in the whole ship: the captain’s cabin. More than anyone else, Rey figured, _she_ had every right to be here.

“General?” Rey called softly. “May I come in?”

Leia, sitting on the edge of the bunk, lifted her head with a start. She’d released her greying hair from its elaborate combination of buns and braids; it tumbled over her shoulders and down to the silver belt of her dark blue gown. Rey had never seen her look so vulnerable…or so beautiful.

“Rey,” Leia whispered. There was so much motherly affection and concern in her voice as she said the name, it made Rey want to throw herself on her knees and bury her face in Leia’s lap. “Of course you may come in. I could use a little company. Shut the door, too. I have a feeling we could both enjoy some peace and quiet.”

She patted the mattress. Rey managed a weak smile, closing the door and sitting down. As soon as she did, Leia took her hand and lifted it.

“Now,” Leia said slowly, knowingly, “I may be old…and it’s been a long time since I’ve seen a lightsaber in action…but I do recognize a saber burn when I see it.”

Rey blinked, glanced at her own hand. She’d been so busy (and so well-trained by her days as a scavenger to ignore minor pain), she hadn’t even noticed the puffy blister on the side of her hand. One of her quick flourishes of her saber in the Throne Room must’ve grazed too close to her skin.

“And this,” Leia went on, running her fingers over the goose-egg bump on Rey’s forehead, “looks pretty nasty. Care to tell me where you got _that_?”

Rey’s mouth felt dry. “It’s a long story…but I…I did come in here to tell you about it.”

Leia lowered their clasped hands, a kind smile quirking her mouth. “Well…I’m all ears.”

Rey took a deep breath. Swallowed. Balled the fabric of her tunic in both hands. Exhaled.

“I…I didn’t come straight to Crait from Ach-To. I came from the _Supremacy_.”

Leia raised her eyebrows. “The _Supremacy_?”

Rey nodded…and then she went all the way back. Back to her first day with Luke. She told Leia how Luke had, at first, ignored her desperate pleas…how he finally agreed to train her, but not return to the Resistance, not yet…how Kylo Ren had appeared to her in her hut. When Rey uttered the terrible name Leia sat up very straight, but Rey refused to let it rattle her. Even if Leia hated her for what happened next in the story, she would _not_ be afraid. 

She omitted no detail. Honesty, she figured, was the only smart policy with a woman like Leia Organa. So Rey told her about the conversations, the nightmares, the confessions, the teasing, and her growing conviction that Kylo Ren had been tormented by guilt, grief, and a miserable longing for home.

She told Leia about how they’d touched hands through the connection.

She told her about the vision.

She told her about the Throne Room.

She told her about the kiss.

Once she’d finished, concluding with Ben’s daring flight through Crait’s perilous canyon, silence fell over the cabin. Leia looked away, her gaze fixing on the wall. Rey held her breath, terrified.

 _What if she’s furious? Ben’s turned_ now _, but I was communicating with him long before he did. I was opening myself up to him…confiding in him…becoming his friend…yet I had no guarantee that he wouldn’t stab us all in the back anyway or try to find out where Luke and I were. Not exactly the best of strategies—_

“So you’re telling me,” Leia murmured, interrupting her thoughts, “that my son has been in communication with you almost since you left us…that you offered him solace, companionship, and hope…and that he killed Snoke…for you?”

Rey stared at her hands, absently rubbing the edge of her blister. The answer came out of her on a shallow, nervous breath: “Yes.”

“Do you love him?”

Rey dared to look up. Leia still stared at the wall, but there were tears in her eyes. Rey didn’t dare to guess what they meant.

“I love Ben, General,” Rey whispered. “I never loved Kylo Ren.”

Leia smiled a little, blinked to release a tear, and finally looked at Rey. When she cupped the girl’s face in her palm, Rey leaned into the touch before she could stop herself. Almost immediately she tried to pull back, embarrassed, but Leia only wrapped an arm around her and tugged her close, pressing Rey’s dark head against her shoulder.

“My brave girl,” Leia whispered, kissing Rey’s bruised forehead. “My brave, brave girl.”

Rey closed her eyes, allowing herself to melt into the embrace the way she was sure she would have clung to her own mother. For a moment neither said a word; Leia simply stroked Rey’s hair, and Rey simply basked in the warmth and love she’d craved for so long. But finally Leia stirred herself: she pulled in a breath, sat up, and smoothed Rey’s hair fussily.

“Well,” she said, smirking, “now that I’m fully informed…I _am_ wondering where you’ve stashed him.”

Rey laughed shakily. “He’s in a secret hold, down in the cargo bay.”

“Mmm. Han always said those smugglers’ holds would come in handy one day.” Leia struggled to her feet, motioning for Rey to grab her cane. When Rey handed it to her Leia leaned heavily upon it, but nevertheless she made her way with surprising speed to the door. 

“Lead the way, young Rey,” she said, opening the door. “I want to see my son.”

* * *

Ben had finally managed to doze off when he heard the cargo bay door groan open. He jerked his head up, blinked, and stiffened to listen—but the footsteps were too light and quick to belong to anyone other than a girl. And if that wasn’t hint enough, Rey’s presence—bright and fierce—filled his mind, leaving absolutely no room for doubt.

 _Whatever this connection is_ , he thought, _we’d better figure it out soon._

“Ben?” she called. Like a moth to a flame, he sprang to his feet and hooked his fingers through the grilled panel. Rey touched his fingers reassuringly as she got on her knees; he let go and she pulled the panel aside.

“Come on,” she whispered, tugging his arm as he hoisted himself out of the hold. “You have a visitor.”

“I have a wha—”

His voice clogged in his throat. There, standing in the middle of the cargo bay, was a woman…petite and grey-haired and leaning on a cane, the nobility of Padmé Amidala and the passion of Anakin Skywalker mingling in her eyes. For a moment Ben stared at her, unable to speak, hardly able to breathe.

“Ben,” his mother murmured, drinking him in from head to toe.

He opened his mouth, then clamped it shut. He’d never be able to get a coherent word out, not with these tears blinding and choking him. The next thing he knew he’d staggered away from Rey and dropped to his knees, clinging to his mother, burying his face in her soft abdomen.

It took him a second to realize that the wracking, groaning sobs echoing through the room came from _him_. 

“I’m sorry, Mom…I’m so, so sorry…”

“Shh, shh.” Mom wrapped her arms around his head and shoulders, pressing him tightly against her. “It’s all right…it’s all right…”

No…no, it wasn’t all right. It would never _all_ be “all right” ever again. But this moment _was._ He could rest in that, at least. Here, in the cargo bay of his father’s beloved ship, with his face hidden in his mother’s skirts, Ben Solo could be a child again.

Eventually his sobs weakened and he slumped wearily against his mother. She ran her fingers through his hair, smoothing it just as she used to do whenever he, as a little boy, climbed into her bed after a nightmare. At some point Rey had come closer, too. He was suddenly aware that Mom had one arm around the girl, that Rey’s head was on her shoulder, and that the other hand on his back belonged to Rey.

“Ben,” Mom whispered. “Ben, look at me.”

With an effort, he lifted his head. At the sight of his mother gazing down into his face he nearly burst into tears again—but she merely stroked his cheek and smiled tenderly.

“Rey told me what you did on the _Supremacy_ ,” she said. “I’m so, so proud of you.”

“You shouldn’t be. I’ve done—”

“Horrible things. Yes, Ben. You don’t have to confess anything to me. Everything you’re about to tell me, I already know.” She wiped away a fresh tear with her thumb before it could run down his face. “What I _don’t_ know is what you plan to do now _._ Tell me _that_ , Ben.”

Ben swallowed, looked uneasily at Rey. Surprisingly, her eyes were quiet; there was no uncertainty in _her_ posture, let alone in the signature in his mind that was most definitely hers. He coughed, dropped his gaze.

“I—I don’t know,” he stammered. _When was the last time he’d felt so unsure about his next step?_ “Hux will have a price on my head, I have no doubt about that. And I doubt your Resistance will welcome me with open arms after…after I—”

“It’s not ‘my’ Resistance, Ben,” Mom said, a hint of gentle scolding in her tone. “I may be its public face, but even if I died tomorrow there’d be more than enough brave, selfless men and women to keep its fire burning bright. The sooner you learn that, the better.”

He took the rebuke far more humbly than he would have even before his disastrous turn: he nodded and kept his head down. His mother reached for his hand; he gave it to her and she tugged him to his feet.

“I think,” she said, looking up at him now, “I may have an idea. You’re right, Ben—the Resistance won’t be ready to accept you yet, and you’re in no condition to take on the First Order right now. Neither of you are. _You’re_ growing stronger, Rey, but your training is far from over. What you both need is _time_ …and distance.”

“I’m not leaving him,” Rey said stubbornly, throwing her head back. “I promised I’d help him and I’m _not_ changing my mind.”

Ben stared at her, a little surprised by her defiance and loyalty. His mother smiled knowingly.

“I never said you’d have to leave him,” she said. “In fact, watching you two right now, I think that would be the _worst_ possible idea in the history of bad ideas.”

Rey glanced up at Ben, saw him still staring, and looked away with a blush.

“No,” Mom went on thoughtfully, “what _I’m_ considering is more like…a retreat. If you could get somewhere safe and quiet…if you, Ben, could train Rey, and Rey, you could help Ben heal…then perhaps, in good time, you’d be far better prepared and equipped to help us defeat the First Order.”

Rey looked up at Ben again, her expression bolder and more eager now. “You could train me?”

Mom laughed softly. “Rey, you’re looking at the young man once known as the most powerful Jedi in the Galaxy, after Luke Skywalker. He knows—and remembers—far more than he thinks he does.”

Ben nodded again. “Yes…I do.”

“And you’ll let her help you?” Mom asked, more urgently. “You’ve done a good thing today, Ben, but we mustn’t kid ourselves. ‘Coruscant wasn’t built in a day,’ you know. You need—”

“I know,” Ben murmured, returning his focus to the girl beside him. She met his gaze, quiet and steady, as he reached for her hand. “Believe me, Mom…I know how much I need her.”

Rey smiled, ran her thumb over his hand. His mother watched them for a moment in thoughtful silence. Then she reached for both their free hands and squeezed them tight.

“You have each other,” she murmured. “And that may be _everything_ you need.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes I think about what a wonderful mom figure Leia was to Rey, and also how she would've been an AWESOME mother-in-law, and it just...it makes me happy, guys. 
> 
> One chapter left!!! I'm afraid I haven't been writing any new Reylo fics lately--I've been crazy busy with Real Life and my own novel--but I think y'all will find the final chapter quite satisfactory. It'll certainly give you a good idea of where I envisioned Ben and Rey going in this AU world! :)


	11. One Step At a Time

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter Eleven: In Which I Give My Babies the Soft Epilogue They Deserve.

_Cross my heart and hope to die_

_Taking this one step at a time_

_I got your back if you got mine_

_One foot in front of the other_

_—Walk the Moon, “One Foot”_

“Long live the Supreme Leader!”

The triumphant words still echoed in Armitage Hux’s ears, even hours after his inaugural ceremony. It had been everything he’d imagined it would be: full of pomp and circumstance, marching boots, crisp salutes, and the undivided attention and loyalty of a vast army even his father could’ve only dreamed of. And yet…

He paced the floor of his quarters aboard the _Steadfast_ , the Star Destroyer he’d commandeered and declared his own flagship. It had been eight days since that Resistance ship made its suicidal through the _Supremacy._ Eight days since Kylo Ren— _no_ , _Ben Solo_ , he reminded himself—murdered Snoke. Eight days since that little Scavenger came in and changed everything.

Hux had to admit, there was a teeny-tiny part of him that wanted to thank her. After all, by stealing Ben Solo away from the First Order, she’d made things astonishingly easy for _him_. There really wasn’t anyone to challenge his claim to the title of Supreme Leader…except, maybe, Enric Pryde. Pryde hadn’t shown any sign that he might make such a move, but a man could never be too careful.

Thankfully, they were of the same mind on the most important thing: the First Order’s dominion _must_ be solidified for good. Leia Organa and her followers might be able to lick their wounds on some isolated, uncharted planet, out of range of First Order scanners—but the rest of the Galaxy _had_ to be brought to heel. From now on, the First Order would strangle the slightest breath of discontent without hesitation. And he, Armitage Hux, answered to no one now. Not to Snoke with his slow, calculating schemes, nor to Kylo Ren— _Ben Solo—_ with his childish dependence on an ancient religion and his own family legacy.

He and Pryde agreed on something else, as well: as far as the general citizenry should be concerned, Kylo Ren was dead. Killed in the destruction of the _Supremacy._ It wouldn’t do for ordinary people to know that Snoke had been murdered by his own apprentice, who had then defected with a Jedi girl. Hux already had to deal with his own very public failure on Crait. Pryde agreed that the First Order didn’t need _anyone_ to know Ben Solo was also alive, well, and probably spilling all his intimate knowledge of the Order with the Resistance.

Hux paused in his pacing, catching a glimpse of his reflection in the windowport behind his new, gleaming black desk. It startled him. In spite of the triumph blooming in his chest, he looked gaunt, tired…haunted. He brought a hand to his cheek—

And jumped back with a choked, startled cry.

For just an instant, his reflection had morphed. The white skin of his face had shriveled; his bottom eyelidshad drooped, revealing sickly pale membranes beneath his eyeballs; his hair had thinned and gone white.

It lasted only half a second. His reflection looked normal again: his uniform was stiff with starch, his red hair immaculate, his skin clean and firm. Yet his breath came in shuddering, frightened gasps.

His father used to see things. He once thought young Armitage was an attacking Mon Calamari and almost shot him with a blaster.

_No no no…that’s NOT going to happen to ME. I’m fit as a fiddle. I’m just over-tired after a long and busy day, that’s all. The excitement has gone to my head._

He spun on the ball of his foot, clasped his hands behind his back, and resolutely steered his mind far from the bizarre experience. He had things to do, papers to sign, plans to make, and bounties to set. Ben Solo, after all, could not be allowed to live. Who knew what First Order secrets that traitor had already spilled to his mother? Who knew how she was already preparing to use those secrets against _him_?

And if Skywalker was still alive—

_“Strike me down, Armitage Hux, and your father’s madness will surely be yours.”_

_“_ Arrrrrrrrrrrgh!” Hux snarled through gritted teeth, sweeping a hand over the obsessively neat surface of his desk. Pens and datapadds went flying—just as the door of his quarters hissed open and Enric Pryde quirked an eyebrow at the unfolding sight before him.

“Supreme Leader,” Pryde said slowly, contempt dripping from his voice. “Are you all right?”

Hux gathered himself with an effort. _Control, control! You’re getting as bad as Ren himself._

 _SOLO. Call him by his birth name! He’s not one of us anymore! He was_ never _one of us, the traitor..._

“Quite all right,” said Hux, straightening his tunic with a quick, jerky motion. “Even the most disciplined among us must let off some steam every once in a while.”

Pryde tipped his head back, peering at Hux down the length of his nose. “Of course, sir. You wished for an audience with the bounty hunter?”

Hux practically felt his eyes brighten. “I did. You made contact with him?”

“One of my subordinates did. Although with respect, perhaps we should simply dispatch one of our own undercover assassins. It would be far less…messy.”

“And perhaps not as satisfactory, either,” Hux snapped. “Sometimes we are too _sanitary,_ Pryde. I want Solo dead—him and his mother and his little Jedi wench—and I want it done in such a way, it’ll crush the spirit of the Resistance for good.” He drew himself up, mustering back all his frigid dignity. “Have your man channel the communication to this room. I will negotiate with the bounty hunter myself.”

General Pryde tilted his head in the barest of nods and left the room. Hux exhaled with as much relief as satisfaction and sank into the cushioned chair behind his desk.

Oh yes… _leadership did have its perks_ , he thought, until his gaze landed on the items he’d scattered so foolishly onto the floor. With an irritated groan he stood and bent to retrieve them—

_“Strike me down, Armitage Hux, and your father’s madness will surely be yours.”_

“No,” Hux growled. “I’m not listening. I’m—not—listening—to _any_ of this!”

He got only silence for a reply.

But for a moment, even the silence felt skeptical.

* * *

Millions of light-years away, Rey stepped out of Leia’s new headquarters on the lush, vibrant moon of Ajan Kloss and pulled a good-natured grimace. Her navy-blue, long-sleeved tunic was much too warm for the heat and humidity of this place—and the grey cloak fastened around her neck only made it worse.

“Trust me,” Leia had told her this morning as she helped her dress, “you’ll be glad I insisted on this. It was still late summer when you visited Takodana. Winter won’t be _quite_ so pleasant.”

 _Takodana_. If she weren’t so uncomfortably sweaty, Rey would’ve shivered with glee. It was the first green planet she’d ever laid eyes on, and she was going back. Leia had contacted Maz Kanata within hours of reuniting with Ben, telling her the whole story of the past six weeks, and the wizened, wise old woman had agreed without hesitation to hide both the Last Jedi and the Last Skywalker on her home planet.

“I can’t guarantee anything, of course,” Maz had warned, eyeing Rey and Leia through the hologram with a slyness that suggested she _could_ guarantee plenty of mischief. “But the First Order never paid Takodana much mind before they came looking for that little droid—and they haven’t paid us any mind _since_. We can take in your children, Leia… _if_ that boy agrees to put a little muscle into helping me rebuild my castle.”

Leia had laughed. “I’d expect nothing less of him.”

Maz had smirked, then turned her keen eyes on Rey. “And you, Child? Has he paid you back for the wrong he did to you?”

Rey had blinked, a little startled by the question. She thought of all those weeks on Ach-To, getting to know him and read his face and sense his thoughts without even realizing she was doing it. He carried so much regret…so much guilt. She knew, without him ever having to say it, how sorry he was for the terror and pain he’d caused her.

“I’ve forgiven him,” she’d answered honestly. “I just want to help him to forgive himself.”

Maz had raised her eyebrows (or what passed for eyebrows in her wrinkled face) and glanced at Leia. Leia had looked back and nodded. Rey wasn’t sure what those looks and gestures meant, but they must’ve satisfied Maz. She smiled and patted the enormous blaster that, somehow, she managed to carry around.

“You are wise beyond your years, young Rey,” she’d said, regarding Rey with that same knowing look she’d pierced her with nearly two months ago when they first met. “Not many would forgive a man like Kylo Ren, yet _you_ believed he would come back. That is no small thing. Do not forget it.”

Now, several days later, Rey found herself completely _incapable_ of forgetting it. Ben consumed her thoughts, her plans, her hopes…and yes, her worries. She knew he was getting impatient, his dad’s cargo hold much too small to contain him—both physically and mentally—for much longer. But she also still sensed lingering darkness in him—not a temptation to go back to the Dark, necessarily, but a bone-deep pain he couldn’t shake.

He’d stayed aboard the _Falcon,_ of course, hidden from everyone but her and Leia. Some evenings, when Rey crept down to the cargo hold, she’d find him pacing the length of his hiding space in deep thought. The instant he saw her, his dark eyes would light up and an eager smile would cross his face. He looked ten years younger when he smiled at her like that.

But other evenings—and if Rey was being honest with herself, it happened _most_ evenings—he’d be slumped over in the corner, his elbows on his bent knees, his face drawn and haunted. Leia was right when she said “Coruscant wasn’t built in a day.” A boyhood of mental torment plus seven years immersed in the Dark Side had racked up plenty of horrible memories, and they wouldn’t loosen their grip on his mind without a fight.

At least he’d stopped avoiding the Jedi texts. When she first brought them to him, hoping they’d at least keep him occupied, he’d practically turned his nose up at them.

“Don’t be difficult,” Rey had snapped. “Here I am, bringing you some reading material we _both_ need, and you’re going to be a snob about it?”

“I’m not a snob,” he’d retorted, scowling at her. “It’s just—”

“What?”

He glared at the books in her arms. “I’m not exactly fond of the Jedi, you know.”

“But you’re fond of _me_.”

Ben had looked up at that, his eyes softening. All the color had rushed to her face under that look as she awkwardly pushed the books into his arms.

“Study,” she mumbled. “And tell me what you learn tonight when I come with your supper.”

“You can read, can’t you?” he’d asked, concerned.

“You know I can. But some of them are written in different languages. I’m counting on _you_ to decipher those for me—so I’d appreciate it if you weren’t a jerk about it.”

He’d chuckled—a wonderful, _wonderful_ sound, Rey had decided—and balanced the books in one arm. With his free hand he tucked a strand of hair behind her ear.

“You’re so beautiful,” he’d whispered, his thumb tracing her eyebrow.

Her face felt like it was on fire. “Shut up.”

That time he actually laughed. And when he leaned down and caught her lips in a kiss, Rey felt like floating. He didn’t kiss her every time they were together; he’d started dealing them out more sparingly after insisting on a few “ground rules” once they got to Takodana. But when he did…

Oh, when he did kiss her, it was as if the humming connection between them wanted to _sing._

Now, dressed for travel and all but quivering with anticipation, Rey banished the pleasant memory before it could bring on a terrific blush and make her even more uncomfortable in these hot clothes than she already was. She’d just consulted the powerful nav-com in Leia’s headquarters one last time: she knew where the First Order had patrols, knew which hyperlanes to avoid, and had every confidence she could get the _Falcon_ to Takodana without a problem. Leia herself was aboard the _Falcon_ having one last conversation with Ben, and she’d wanted to give them their privacy for as long as she could.

But as she approached the _Falcon_ , a sudden breeze stirring her unbound hair, she spotted Poe, Finn, Chewie, and Rose clustered near its lowered ramp. BB-8 rolled happily at their feet, gathering leaves and flowers with one of his tiny steel prongs. Rose, leaning on her crutches, threw her head back and laughed at something Poe had said. Finn watched her with a tenderness Rey recognized. She’d seen the same look in Ben’s eyes.

“Hey!” she called cheerfully, picking up her pace. “Come to see me off, have you?”

They all turned towards her; Poe grinned, but Finn’s smile fell. When Leia announced Rey would be leaving for more Jedi training (although with _whom_ , she hadn’t specified) Finn had taken the news the hardest. Rey hated keeping secrets from him, but he’d finally accepted her conviction that everything would be okay and she’d be safe with Maz, once she promised him she’d come back as soon as she could.

“Yeah, I guess we’ve come to see you off,” Poe teased, “though part of me says you don’t deserve it, leavin’ us high and dry when we need you the most.”

Rey smirked. “I’ll do you a whole lot more good once I know what I’m actually _doing_ , Poe Dameron. Not all of us can afford to slam through life with your flyboy mentality.”

He snorted. “I know. I’m learning my lesson, I promise.”

Rey’s smirk softened. “You’ll make a great leader one day. I can feel it.”

Poe blinked, his dark eyes warming with surprise and gratitude as her words sank in. She turned to Finn and Rose next. Rose hugged her as well as she could on her crutches.

“Take care of yourself, Rey,” she said. “I really want the chance to get to know you when you get back. Not just as comrades, but…”

“As friends,” Rey finished gently. “Absolutely. I’d like that.”

She glanced at Finn. He swallowed hard. Rey didn’t even hesitate: she wrapped her arms tightly around his neck and closed her eyes. Finn’s arms coiled around her in return, close and warm.

“If it weren’t for you,” Rey whispered, “I’d never have gotten this far. _Thank you_.”

He drew back far enough to look at her and managed a trembly smile. “Yeah, well…if it weren’t for you, I’d never have gotten off Jakku. Gonna be eternally grateful for that, y’know.”

Rey let out a watery laugh and hugged him one more time, her head against his shoulder this time. BB-8 rolled up, his prong full of foliage, and angled his oculus straight at her.

 _“Ready to goooooooooo?”_ he squealed happily.

Rey jerked her head off Finn’s shoulder. “Go? What are you talking about, BB-8?”

Poe cleared his throat. “Umm, yeah, about that. I’ve got a proposition for you, Rey. Looks like we’re gonna be layin’ low here on Ajan Kloss for a while, at least until the First Order stops breathin’ down our necks…and BB-8’s developed a bit of an appetite for adventure after his hair-raising romp with Finn and Rose.”

“Hey,” Finn protested, “BB-8 did a _lot_ of that romping on his own.”

Poe grinned, clearly amused by (and proud of) the mental image _that_ statement conjured. “Yeah, well…just so you know, this wasn’t my idea, Rey—it was BB-8’s. He wants to go with you.”

Rey’s mouth fell open. “ _What?_ But—but Poe, he’s your—”

“Droid, companion, confidante, kid—yeah, I know.” Poe took a deep breath, clamped his hands on his hips. “But I know you’ll take care of him…and that you’ll bring him back. Besides, you _need_ a droid for info and atmo-readings and what-not. Who else are you gonna take? C-3PO?”

Chewie chortled at that. Rey laughed, too. _Ben would have a fit if we brought C-3PO along_.

“Thank you,” she murmured. “Seriously, I can’t thank you enough—”

“You can thank me by finishing your training and _coming back_ ,” Poe said. “Somebody’s gotta beat Supreme Leader Hugs’ butt.”

* * *

Ben sensed Rey drawing her farewells to a close. He and his mother sat in the cargo hold above his hiding place. She sat so close to him, her skirts brushed his leg as he leaned forward with his elbows on his knees, hands tightly clasped. They’d sat like this in silence for several moments now, conversation fading as they both realized their time was drawing short.

When she finally reached out and laid her hand over both of his, Ben shuddered. He forced himself to look at her. Mom met his gaze, then lifted her hand to his cheek. She ran her thumb over his scar, right where Dad had last touched him.

“I love you,” she murmured. “You know that, don’t you?”

Ben’s throat tightened. As a child he’d practically lived for the moments when she’d say those three words. She’d said them often. _When did I stop believing them?_

 _When Snoke got into your head_ , a cold, toneless, familiar voice whispered back to him. _When you_ let _him get into your head. Because you were_ weak _. Just like you still are._

Ben shuddered again, trying hard to shut out the voice. Snoke’s had gone silent, of course, and for the first couple of days here on the _Falcon_ he’d hoped his head would be his own for the first time in nearly twenty years.

It seemed a cruel irony that his own voice, the voice of Kylo Ren, simply wouldn’t shut up. His own mind taunted, haunted, and accused him nearly every waking moment now. He was still his own worst enemy.

“Ben,” Mom whispered, increasing the pressure of her hand on his skin. “Look at me, honey.”

He hadn’t even realized his gaze had drifted. He locked eyes with her again, unable to hide his tears from her. She leaned forward and pressed her lips to his forehead. Ben’s breath caught and he swallowed back a groan.

“I love you,” she whispered, leaning her head against his. “I love you so much. You will always be my boy…and I am so, _so_ proud of you.”

“You shouldn’t be,” he rasped. “I have so much blood on my hands…”

“I know. But you _will_ redeem those years of darkness, Ben. I believe that, and so does Rey. You’ve just got to give yourself time. Time to _heal_ …and rest…and forgive yourself.” She smiled gently. “You’ll be all the stronger for it, I promise.”

He drew a shaky breath and nodded. She and Rey kept telling him that. In his lighter moments, he believed them. But then the memories of the Jedi Temple came back to him…memories of Tai and Voe…of Lor San Tekka…of _Dad_ …and sometimes it just made him want to curl up in a fetal position and _scream_ in sheer agony.

What was it Rey had said right after they escaped from the _Supremacy_ , though? _“Hope, forgiveness, and love. We can fight the Darkness with those three weapons, Ben. We_ have _to!”_

He did have hope—a little, anyway, that the First Order might fall. If anyone could tear it down, it would be Mom and Rey. But he couldn’t forgive himself—not yet. And love—well, he had that in abundance for his mother…and for Rey. He knew that now. He loved Rey: he felt peace only when she was nearby, ached for her when she was gone, and wanted to cherish her for the rest of his life, however long or short it might be.

How she could love _him_ , though…that was the thing he still couldn’t wrap his mind around.

His mother dropped her hand from his cheek, and Ben watched as she twisted a simple gold ring off one of her fingers. It was the plainest bit of jewelry she ever wore, and she still wore plenty. But he also knew it was the piece she loved most…because Dad had given it to her.

She took one of his large hands, pressed the ring into his palm, and closed his fingers over it. 

“Keep it,” she said, looking him straight in the eye.

Ben shook his head in disbelief. “No. I can’t. It’s—”

“Not for you,” she whispered, quirking an eyebrow.

He stared at her, blinked owlishly…and understood. He sat up abruptly and opened his hand, gawking at the ring like it was the first time he’d ever laid eyes on it.

“You’ll be spending practically every waking moment together,” Mom added. “Working, studying, talking...hopefully playing a little. I suspect she’ll make sure you don’t run yourself into the ground. But when things settle, things are peaceful, and you have a chance to _really_ look at her and realize just how connected you are…you may find you can’t live without her.”

“I already know I can’t,” he whispered. He couldn’t get his voice any louder or stronger than that. “I just don’t know how or why or…” He swallowed, peered at her. “Do _you_ know, and you’re not telling me?”

Mom frowned. “I don’t know. But I have a feeling those texts will have an answer…and Maz might, too. She’s lived a long time, and she knows the Force better than most.”

“Ben?” Rey suddenly called, her voice echoing in the _Falcon’_ s labyrinthine corridors. “General?”

Ben’s breath caught; he quickly pocketed the ring. His mother smiled.

“Don’t lose it,” she whispered, leaning close. He felt a grin tug at the corner of his own mouth—but then Rey was in the doorway, flushed with excitement (and probably heat, judging by those warm clothes). Ben sprang to his feet and helped his mother upright.

“Ready to go?” Rey asked.

“Ready to go,” Ben repeated, smiling quietly at her. His mother gripped his hand tightly and extended her free hand to Rey, who darted forward and seized it.

“I will count the days till you come back,” Mom said, looking each of them in the eye in turn. “Stay in touch. You know how to contact me—but don’t feel obligated to call in every day. Use your discretion. We don’t want to attract any unwanted attention to Takodana, or to this base.”

“Of course,” Rey said. She’d stiffened when Mom used the words _count the days_ , and Ben had immediately received a flash of her memory: tally marks on Jakku, more on Ach-To. She knew exactly what it felt like, marking time till she saw a loved one’s face. “But we’ll check in regularly, I promise. I can’t wait to tell you everything we learn and do and…” Rey let out a breathless, nervous laugh. “Is it bad that I’m _this_ excited?”

Mom laughed softly. “No, of course not. You’re going on an adventure—one that hopefully won’t involve too much danger for a while. Enjoy it, Rey.” She glanced up at Ben. “And _you_ enjoy it, too. All right?”

He could only nod, but she seemed to accept it. She turned to Rey, hugging the girl tightly. Ben watched as Rey squeezed her eyes shut, the pain of leaving his mother and her friends finally showing itself.

 _She’s leaving them for_ your _sake, you know_ , droned the loathsome voice in his head. _They’re the only family she’s ever known. You should be embarrassed. You don’t deserve her loyalty. You don’t deserve—_

 _STOP_ , he snapped back mentally. _Just for now, just STOP. I know what I don’t deserve. I know what I DO deserve. And I don’t need_ you _to tell me anything about it._

To his surprise, the voice had no reply. His mother had turned to him anyway. He bent low and wrapped his arms around her, dropping his chin on her shoulder and holding her small, worryingly frail frame close.

“I love you,” Mom whispered. “Be safe, don’t hide anything from her…and forgive yourself, please.”

“I’ll try,” he mumbled.

Mom shifted, pulling away from him. Ben suddenly felt very small as she reached up and cupped his face in her hands.

“Ben,” she murmured, “never be afraid of who you are.”

He couldn’t speak. His mother smiled gently, sadly, lovingly as she drew him down and kissed his forehead.

Just like she used to do when he was very small and very frightened, and wanted nothing more than to curl up in her arms where everything was safe and good and _right_.

“Now go,” she said, smiling bravely at them both. “And may the Force be with you.”

* * *

Rey and Ben paused in the doorway of the _Falcon_ ’s cockpit, BB-8 right behind them. He’d expressed his great surprise and puzzlement when Rey introduced him to Ben, and for a moment there she worried his infobanks might put two and two together and identify Ben as the same man who’d pursued him so relentlessly across the galaxy. But the little droid only cocked his domed head, regarded Ben for one long, breathless moment, and finally warbled a cheerful welcome.

Ben, crouching in front of BB-8, actually cracked a relieved smile. “Nice to meet you, too, BB-8.”

Now they hesitated just behind the pilot and co-pilot chairs. Rey’s heart thudded in her chest. Ben cleared his throat.

“You take the pilot’s seat,” he said.

She glared at him. “No. I’ve had plenty time to fly the _Falcon_. And anyway, she’s yours by right.”

He looked a little uncomfortable. “I don’t deserve—”

Rey reached up and covered his mouth with her hand. Ben froze.

“You wanted ground rules?” she hissed. “Well, I’ve got one of my own. No more talk about what you do or don’t deserve. From this moment on, you’re starting over. You’re turning over a new leaf. Let the past die, Ben. Kill it, if you have to.”

His eyes, wide with shock a moment before, suddenly sparked with wry humor. She lowered her hand.

“That’s not fair,” he teased, “using my words against me.”

“Well, they weren’t bad words in a proper context.” Rey raised her eyebrows. “Let it die now?”

He sighed. “I’ll try. I promise.”

“ ‘Do or do not. There is no try.’ ”

Ben groaned, recognizing the maxim from Luke’s notes in one of the texts. “Oh, Maker…”

Rey giggled. “Okay, so who’s flying?”

He thought a moment, then glanced up and pulled his father’s dice down from where they hung from the ceiling. He cupped them in his hands and shook them.

“Whoever gets the bigger number takes the pilot’s seat…this time,” he said. “After that we can take turns.”

“Okay.” Rey watched, intense, as he shook the dice for two more seconds, then tossed them to the floor. They both dropped into crouches, their faces very close together, and peered at the upturned dice.

“Nine,” Ben said, pointing. He looked up at her, smirking. “Pretty high number for me.”

“Yeah, well…” Rey snatched up the dice and tumbled them between her clasped hands. She sucked in a breath, let them fall, and they leaned in close again.

“ _Twelve!_ ” she shrieked. “I win! You can take the pilot’s seat when—”

But he silenced her, cupping her cheek in one hand and slanting his lips against hers in a long, tender kiss. Rey sighed and let him, bracing herself with one hand against his leg, the other gripping his arm. She didn’t care what BB-8 saw or thought. The little droid was probably very interested and curiously searching his banks for an explanation.

When Ben broke the kiss, Rey couldn’t quite bring herself to look him in the eye.

“I thought we had ground rules,” she whispered shyly. “We’re getting to know each other better before we do so much kissing.”

“We’re not on Takodana yet,” he whispered back. “And I…no matter what happens next, Rey, I want you to know something.”

She looked up, met his gaze. He ran his thumb along her cheekbone.

“I…Force around us, why is this so difficult…”

“Shh,” she whispered. “Don’t try to speak it. Just say it to my mind.”

He sighed. Looked her straight in the eye. She felt the connection burst to life and drew in a sharp breath as his voice filled her mind.

_“I’m not good with words, Rey, unless I’m writing them. I’ve always fumbled over them, always said the wrong thing, or never said the right thing when the time demanded it. But I want to say this now. No matter what we learn or do on Takodana, and no matter what happens afterward…you need to know that I love you.”_

Rey stared at him, too overwhelmed for a moment to reply. Nobody had ever said those words to her…not since her parents left her on Jakku. Her chin wobbled, her vision blurred, and she reached back to his mind.

 _“I love you, too,”_ she whispered. _“I love you so much.”_

He smiled and leaned forward to kiss her again—but this time he pulled them both to their feet and slid his arms around her waist, holding her close for just a few seconds longer before breaking the kiss and leaning his forehead against hers. Rey closed her eyes, letting herself sink into the wonderful _safeness_ of the moment.

“Let’s go have an adventure, Captain Rey,” he whispered.

She opened her eyes with a laugh and clapped her hands firmly against his chest.

“All right, Commander Solo,” she said, tossing her head. “Let’s go.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THE END! Now, I haven't actually written a sequel yet--maybe I will at some point, I can't make any promises--but here's what I've envisioned: 
> 
> Ben and Rey would have a year of rehabilitation on Takodana with Maz, training, healing, and learning more and more about the true nature of their bond together. But then they get word of Palpatine's return and hurry back to Ajan Kloss, where they begin the search for Exegol with Finn, Poe, Chewie, and ROSE (*defiantly thumbing my nose at the Rose haters*). The plot would stick fairly close to TROS, except Armitage Hux would be the big baddie alongside Palpatine, still desperate to kill Ben and Rey one way or another. But Our Babies would, of course, survive and live happily ever after, because I say so. 
> 
> What a fun journey this has been. I do chuckle over the fact that it was a "Last Jedi" AU (and not my unfinished "Rise of Skywalker" fix-it) that ended up being my most successful venture into Star Wars fanfic--but hey, whatever works. And this story really sparked my creativity in some awesome ways. Not only has it confirmed for me that I absolutely LOVE writing sci-fi/fantasy stories (and far prefer it over contemporary/historical genres), but it's launched me into exploring the whole Hades & Persephone trope...and all those realizations and explorations have inspired me in my own original writing. So three cheers for Reylo--it's gotten my creative engines moving again! 
> 
> A thousand thanks to everyone who's commented on this story. I'm so sorry I haven't had a chance to respond to the most recent ones; my life has gotten a little hectic and unpredictable these past few weeks, but rest assured that each comment has been greatly appreciated and brought much-needed smiles to my face. Y'all are awesome, and it thrills me that you've enjoyed this little story so much. 
> 
> Until next time! (*waves*)


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